[Elecraft] Spoke too soon... K2 problem

[Stephanie Maks]

Hi Ed,

It's a Radio Shack 13.5 volt, 1-amp supply.  I was using it mainly  
for receive and test transmitting, up to about 2 or 3 watts, for  
which it worked great with the K1.

For what it's worth, the supply has a good long cord, two of them  
actually, about 6 feet of cord from the outlet to the supply itself,  
then another 6 feet from the power supply to the radio.  The supply  
was never anywhere near the K2.  However, my work bench is a pretty  
busy place, so there is a lot of other electrical equipment within 2  
or 3 feet of the radio.

On the other hand, I built my K2 with the magnetic VCO shield option  
right from the start, so I never bothered to instal L30.  So I'm not  
sure if the problem was magnetic interference.  I suspect that the  
the DC coming out of the power supply isn't as clean as I expected.

Anyhow, running it off some batteries did seem to clear up the  
receive 100%.  To be sure though, I'm having another good look at the  
K2 to make sure I didn't miss or mess up any of the RF chokes.

73 de Stephanie
va3uxb
K2#5311 - K1#2132


On 22-Jan-2006, at 11.41.40, Ed Findley wrote:

> Stephanie
> Just so we know so we can using it, What was the power supply you  
> were using
> that caused the problem?
> Thanks
>
> Ed Findley N5LDY
> K2 #1073 FP #1233
>
> Thank you everybody for pointing out the very obvious source of my
> problem.  I had read about what can happen with low quality power
> supplies.
>
>
>