[Elecraft] Alignment/Test II assistance request

[Don Wilhelm]

Rod,

I believe you had a typo - the PLL range must be between 9.8 and 15 kHz, 
so your PLL range is on the low side by quite a bit, and should be 
corrected (it could possibly be the cause of your 'no signals on 40' 
situation).

First do some more verification steps - carefully check the soldering of 
the varactors (D16 and D17) and RP2 and R19 (check the values too).
After that, monitor the voltage out of U5 pin 7 when in CAL FCTR.  When 
you tap BAND+ you should find 4 volts and when tapping BAND- you should 
see close to zero volts.  Do the same thing but this time monitor the 
voltage at U6 pin 1 - the swing should be about twice the voltage swing 
you found at U5 pin 7 (if it is not, check the thermistor board). 
If you do have these voltage swings as expected, and the components and 
soldering are OK, you may have to replace the PLL crystal - some 
crystals have a higher Q than others and will not move as far in a VXO 
circuit (the PLL Reference is really just a VXO).

For the BFO range, it may be OK for most of your filter settings, but if 
you have to change it, a small value capacitor (10 to 20 pf) connected 
between U11 pin 6 and ground (use U11 pin 3) should bring it into range 
- you may have to experiment a bit with the value.

If you can connect a real antenna to the receiver, you stand a better 
chance of hearing signals on 40 meters.  While there are usually some 
signals on 40, many evenings I have found them quite weak and barely 
able to move the S-meter - we can blame the sunspot cycle for that.

If you have a 40 meter crystal and a few parts, you could build the 
oscillator shown in the manual appendix E page 9 - that has plenty of 
output to give you a signal for troubleshooting.  Alternately, you can 
use most any other transmitter running into a dummy load along with your 
short wire antenna on the K2.

73,
Don W3FPR

rcerkon at gmail.com wrote:
> Need a second opinion with some Align/Test II results.
>
> Item 1: PLL Reference OSC Range. Fref-high = 12100.5 kHz, Fref-low =
> 12091.0 kHz. Fdiff - 9.5 kHz. The manual says the diff. _must_ be 9.5
> - 15 kHz. I'm a little low.
>
> I followed the T/S steps and checked associated components C84, C85,
> D19, D17, L31 & X1--all are correct.
>
> Item 2: BFO, BFOhigh-freq = 4917.16 kHz, BFOlow=freq = 4912.88 kHz,
> Both a "smidge" higher than the manual spec. 4917 kHz and 4912 kHz
> respectively.
>
> Frequency measurements were made with the internal frequency meter,
> after calibrating it per the manual with a Radio Shack wide range
> frequency meter. Experience building K2s told me to call it good
> because they things were so close and press on. But I've been away
> from building for 2 years or so, and thought I better get a second
> opinion.
>
> FWIW PLL linearization worked just fine, as did Filter/BFO setup.
>
> Item 3: Adjusting L34 for best S/N ratio I could not really notice
> much change. L1 & L2 seamed to peak OK with a Noise Generator
> connected to the antenna jack. But with a few feet of wire connected
> to the ANT jack I could _NOT_ receive any signals on 40m. Is 40 that
> dead? It might be my QTH, river valley surrounded by low mountains.
> I'll have to get access to an XG1 or XG2 and do more trouble shooting.
> Anyone have either they would like to loan out or sell?
>
>