[Elecraft] K2 first on-air test

[Don Wilhelm]

Tom,

Congratulations on your success.

There is a half-high tilt stand available from Elecraft that may work 
for you.  I tried it and find that it does work, but for me is about 1/2 
inch too low, so I put a piece of 1/2 inch plywood under it.

As far as the fan noise, it should not be THAT loud.  You may want to 
check your fan mounting - loosen the screws and test it with the screws 
only finger tight.  If you beefed them down too much, you can distort 
the fan body and it will get noisy.  If it quiets down with the screws 
finger tight, snug the mounting screws up only enough to compress the 
lockwashers - the spring in the lockwashers will keep the screws from 
loosening more.

If your fan is running all the time, first check the CAL tpa parameter - 
the setting should match the current temperature of the heatsink.  Then 
check to be certain the fan is set to 'Normal'.

73,
Don W3FPR

Tom Zeltwanger wrote:

> <snip>
> I only had one minor issue and one issue that I will need to resolve. The minor
> issue is that the stand is too high to use if you are constantly tuning the
> bands. A "center" position would be helpful.
> 
> The big issue for me is one that we discussed before. The fan is terribly loud.
> In a CW contest it runs almost full time. I don't know how some people can say
> it does not annoy them. I couldn't operate SSB with this fan running in the
> shack. I don't want to start another long fan discussion, but I can't ignore
> this. I will try some of the fan fixes that have been suggested here.
> 
> 73,
>  
> Tom KG3V