[Elecraft] K3 from 100W to QRP

[G3SJJ]

Maxim, I'm not sure why you need to go down to 3w. The K3 will sit at 
120w for a long time. I don't need to use an ATU here as all my antennas 
are fed with coax and remotely swiched, but I do have a manual tune amp. 
I have a small printed card fixed with blue tack to the front panel 
showing setting per band/mode. A bit like the old ad for Alpha amps, 
Tuning By Numbers. 20m CW is 44 /36, so swopping bands is simple. Flick 
the band change switch, quickly turn the two dials to those settings, 
apply RF and do final fine tune. All done within a few seconds. The only 
thing I have to watch is knock the power knob back on the MP to roughly 
the area I know that gives me a reasonable ampount of power out of the 
amp, say 30-50 watts. I would have thought this technique would have 
been OK with the K3.

Chris G3SJJ


> Well, when you wish to go from 100w, down to 3w, in order to tune an
> external tuner (in my case an SGC auto-tuner), it can get tedious.
>
> On 16/1/08 13:48, "Joe-aa4nn" <aa4nn at earthlink.net> sent:
>
>   
>> Benny, it's just the turn of a pot!
>> How difficult or inconvenient could that be.  hi
>> de Joe, aa4nn
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Benny Aumala" <benny.aumala at pp.inet.fi>
>>     
>>> Maybe my interest to QRP is partially because K2.
>>> I want to use my K3/100 still quite a lot in QRP and QRPP.
>>> The degree of adjust is really fine down to 0.1W.
>>> Also, 100W PA switch-off below 10W is very clever.
>>> But to crank between 100 and 5W is not very handy.
>>>
>>> I would like to see PF1 to change powers between two adjustable levels.
>>>
>>> Benny    oh9nb
>>>