[Elecraft] K2/100 burn-in

[Tom Althoff]

Well I just gave my KPA-100 a workout on 10M.   I set the rig at 27WPM 100W with a 20 second CQ (3 CQ's + 2 callsigns sent twice) with a 4 second pause in auto repeat message mode.

I did not get an answer in the 30 minutes that I called but I also did not get any Hi Temp warning.   The heatsink does get quite warm and with the 5:1 ratio on TX heat vs RX cool off time I might have been exceeding Elecraft's concept of intermittant amateur service.    If I used the K2 as the CQ machine on 10M while looking for QSO's on another band I think I'd put a fan on the K2 for peace of mind if not necessity.

Has anyone really hammered their K2/100 with high CQ or QSO rates for a 24 hour period without a secondary fan?   I'd be curious how it held up and were you successful in cooking eggs on it?   It might make a good George Forman portable contest grill.

It reminds me of the old QST ad (Alpha?) showing their amp putting out a KW with a brick on the key and each month they'd update the numbers to show it was still going strong after X hours.

My K2 is now going to take the seat of honor below my Orion as my primary rig.   The Orion I prefer for SSB (mainly because the VOX works so much better) but there is NOTHING that I've pulled out of the noise and QRM with the Orion set for 100Hz bandwidth that I couldn't copy as well (and at times more comfortably) on the K2.

73 de Tom K2TA