[Elecraft] K2 #2862 Passed Alignment and Test Part II

[Bill Magruder]

Everyone;

Well I made it to Page 61 of the K2 Manual and everything is going fairly
smoothly.  Got stuck on the VCO Alignment where you "adjust Inductor L30
until the voltage at R30 reads 6.0 volts".  First try I was only getting a
maximum of 4.5 volts.  Well I scratched my head and started checking.
Noticed I had swapped Diodes D39 with D33, must have got the numbers
confused in my head.  Everything else looked OK.  Still couldn't get more
than 4.5 volts.

So this morning I pulled transformer T5 and rewound it.  Now I got 5.5
volts, gained 1 volt, progress in the right direction but still not good
enough.  What should I do next?  Check more components, check voltages, pull
T5 and rewind it for the 3rd time?  I was running out of ideas so I finally
broke down and emailed support@elecraft.com.

Talk about good support Gary emailed me back in less than 30 minutes,
"Compressing the red turns will increase the VCO voltage and spreading the
turns will decrease the VCO voltage"

Eureka, now that make sense, I made the mistake of spreading the turns
trying to make sure I had 80 or 90% core coverage.  I reached in with the
plastic tuning and compressed the red windings and in 10 minutes I have the
voltage set at 6.000 volts.

Great kit and great support,  now on to Assembly, Part III only 10 more
pages to go.

Thanks for all the help,

Bill
KD7KST