[Elecraft] K2 Two Alien Problems

[Fred Jensen]

OK, only one is Elecraft-related.

1.  Not Elecraft One:  15m RTTY, K2/100 feeding amp to 500W, DC muffin 
fan on KPA100 heatsink, tower is ENE of the back corner of the house 
about 15m away, beam at 070.  All is well.  Turn antenna to WNW 
[starting to get over the house], and when I transmit, the fan stops. 
While transmitting, turn beam back to 070 [away from house], and fan 
slowly speeds up.  This happens when I have the fan on the K2 running 
but I'm transmitting on my soon-to-be-replaced TS-850 at 500W from the 
amp too.  Ideas welcome, no full-moon stories please.

2.  Elecraft one [I think]:  My RTTY set-up is really minimalist.  Sound 
card feeds the mic input, headphone jack feeds the sound card input, VOX 
keys the radio, a splitter feeds a little RS audio amp to my headphones. 
  It's about the complexity I can handle with the gap between RTTY contests.

Regardless of band, I have a very low "rush-rush" sound in the cans.  If 
you remember the movie "Contact," it sounds like the alien prime number 
signal before we did all the DSP to it and found other stuff.  Just 
"rush-rush-rush" about once a second.  [I tried counting them, but so 
far, no prime numbers, I don't think it's ET].  I'm close to deaf so it 
may be a lot louder than I think, but it doesn't show up, that I can 
tell, on the MMTTY displays.  It changes character when I am tuning the 
K2.  It also will change intensity when I move the headphone cord.  I 
can make it stop by tuning the radio real fast.  This does not happen 
when I'm on the 850 [or FT-847].

It doesn't bother me all that much, just curious.  Ideas welcome, let's 
leave full moon stories out of this.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2008 Cal QSO Party  4-5 Oct 08
- www.cqp.org