[Elecraft] K1 Audio and VFO question..

[Tom Hammond NØSS]

Hi Bill:

At 11:06 AM 10/14/02, William Phinizy wrote:
>I just finished my K1 and everything seemed to work fine at first, however,
>after a checkout and a day or so on the bench listening, I now turned it on
>only to have the audio "fade" after about 30 seconds to 1 minute. I traced
>the receive circuit and found nothing amiss; and now the anomoly seems to
>have disappeared. I wonder if anyone else has experienced this?

Consider a (probably) missed solder joint somewhere... could be a cold 
joint as well... sometimes, such a connection, even though tenuous at best, 
will work fine for a period of time only to degrade (over time (you pick 
the time period). Sometimes the degradation is due to general heating of 
the radio... as things warm up, if they're not 'tied down', they'll tend to 
move just enough that the connection either becomes flakey or just barely 
open... just enough to make life miserable.

So what do you do about it? You open the rig, beat on it a bit, maybe 
solder a few suspicious joints, and then test it out... voila(!) it's 
mysteriously back to life. Did you FIX it??? Nah... you just moved things 
around a bit... just enough to (temporarily) renew the connection.. until 
later.

Wait a week or two and see if it's still working reliably, if so, it's 
probably MAGIC. If not, check them joints again.

>Also, I got the VFO adjusted fine (3095 KHz) but, like a ninny, I "doped"
>the L1 VFO coil to hold the turns in place and when the dope dried the
>frequency excursion started at 3080 KHz and down for about 80 KHz. At that
>point, the rig *did* cover the band edges (40=6.890-7.075,
>30=10.085-10.165). Can I naively assume "no harm no foul?".

Bad move, friend... Elecraft cautions builders to NOT use ANY type of 
fixative on its inductors. You just described one of the reasons why.

>But just to be on the safe side, I extracted the coil and rewound it. But I
>was just wondering.

Good move.

Now, HAVE FUN!

73,

Tom Hammond   N0SS