[Elecraft] consistent (i think) k1 problems..

[sergio]

i have been having a few different problems, and i think i am finally 
narrowing them down, but i need help..

for awhile, i was getting an e42 error constantly.. always out of nowhere.. 
i would just turn my radio on, and i would have the problem..

it would run okay.. for about half a day.. then, the problem would hit..

i resoldered ALL the connectors on the front panel that connect it to the 
rf board..

i resoldered the resistors and transistor that are mentioned in the text..

that didn't seem to help..

then, i resoldered L1.. i laid into it to make sure that there was no way 
there could be any coating left on the wires..

this seemed to remedy the situation..

BUT.. at the same time, i changed the rig over to battery power.. i was 
having some issues getting a good ground match on my artificial ground, and 
i wanted to isolate whatever else may have been in the loop..

previously, i was using a radio shack 13.8 volt regulated power supply... 
(10 amp).. with a 2 amp fuse in series with the radio..

i switched over to the battery, and everything tuned up great.. and i was 
on easy street..

over the past few days, two people have told me that my signal was drifting 
in frequency.. as i was sending, i kept an eye on my freq, and i saw that 
it was indeed dropping during my end of the qso.. dropping about 300 hz in 
a matter of two minutes or so...

in order to check this, i set up my memory keyer to send a cq beacon for a 
few minutes.. it was still drifting like crazy.. but only in one direction, 
lower.

then, i decided to check the battery voltage ( that little voltage meter on 
the k1 is really sweet!) and found that it started around 12.7 and had gone 
down to 12.4 over a few days.. not too much to worry about..

so, in order to make sure i wasn't getting a weird reading due to the 
battery dying, i hooked the power supply. it checked in at 13.8..

that seemed right.. so i sent about a minute of cq's.. after about 30 
seconds, i was back to the same old e42 error... i am sure if i pull it 
apart and goof around with it, i can fix it, but it seems kind of odd that 
it would start back up the minute i put the power supply back online..

next.. okay.. while i was tuning the radio up on different bands to see how 
it worked on batteries, i found that i was only getting about 2 watts out 
on 30m... i checked the menu to make sure it was set for 5w, and it was.. i 
moved it around a little bit both ways, in order to make sure it was not 
stuck somehow.. and it wasn't stuck.. but i could still only get 2 watts 
out. everything tuned up great, and seemed to be fine, but only with 2 watts..

i need help with all this .. can someone give me some pointers?


____
peace,
...sergio
photographer, journalist, visionary

www.village-buzz.com <- read my blog
www.coffee-black.com <- my photography