[Elecraft] K2 Headphone Jack and Internal Speaker

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Zac, KD5IEF asked:

A few days ago, I plugged in some headphones to my K2 and noticed that 
the internal speaker didn't immediately cut out.  I wiggled the 
headphone plug around a bit inside the jack, and after a second or so, 
the internal speaker turned off.  Yesterday, when I plugged my 
headphones in, the same thing happened - plugging in the headphones no 
longer causes the internal speaker to turn off. And this time, wiggling 
the headphone plug had no effect.

I took off the front panel and reheated the leads to the headphone jack, 
thinking maybe one of them was not making good contact.  That didn't 
seem to fix anything.

Any ideas?

----------------------------------------------

The headphone jack has developed a bad internal switch. You need to replace
the jack itself. Replacements are available from Elecraft. 

I've had that problem with the mini jacks on other equipment over the years
and decided it had do to with lateral stresses placed on the jack by the
plug being wiggled around in normal use; when the phones cord is tugged a
bit or, worse, if an adapter is used so there's a fairly heavy plug assembly
stuck in the jack. 

So I went to a right-angle miniplug with a pig-tail that has a jack on it.
That way there's virtually no sideways motion or stress placed on the jack.
One experience doesn't prove the case, but my six-year-old K2/100 still has
the original jack in spite of a lot of action plugging in the phones and
removing them. 

Ron AC7AC