[Elecraft] K2 VCO trouble and fix

[Stewart Baker]

On Tue, 04 Oct 2005 21:33:17 -0400, HSHERRIFF at sc.rr.com wrote:
> I e-mail Gary at Elecraft (3:01pm)
> Get a reply from Gary (4:33pm)
>
> He gave me a PAGE worth of "might be"... one being to check RCF15. He
> said if it was open it can cause all sorts of odd problems.
>
> Well, it WAS open... I must have bent the leads to much or heated it
> too much, or whatever. Anyway, I bridged across it momentarily to see
> what effect it would have.
> Guess what?   ALL VCO voltages were well within limits...including 10m
> high freq. Without even touching L30. So, I ordered a new choke and
> thanked Gary for a quick and accurate response.

Glad that with Gary's help you found the problem. A search of the reflector 
shows that there is a high incidence of RFC15 going open circuit.
It is such a fragile device (probably too fragile),  and I believe that Elecraft 
should change it for one that is more robust. When assembling my K2, knowing 
this to be a potential problem, I took particular care in soldering the RFC, 
only to find that it too had gone open circuit.

73
Stewart G3RXQ