[Elecraft] K3 Power problems

[Julian, G4ILO]

Maarten van Rossum wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I'm having problems with my power out put. I have followed the calibration
> procedure and the K3 more or less puts out the desired power on all bands.
> (I'm not sure how accurate my PWR meter is)
> The problem occurs in SSB when I'm using a microphone (Heil pro set plus
> or
> a Kenwood MC-43S, that doesn't matter). When I have set the power to 100W
> and I yell "Oooolaaa" (into a dummy load off course) into the mic, the PA
> puts out full power en after a couple off seconds it drops to the set
> power.
> When I do the same with the power set 50 W, it produces around 70 W and
> again, after a few seconds the power drops to 50 W.
> 
> After the initial power drop it pretty much stays at the pre set power but
> when I rotate the PWR knob and set the power to a different level, the
> same
> thing happens again.
> 
> This only happens when using microphones. When using the TUNE button this
> doesn't happen.
> 
> What is wrong?
> 
> 
I don't know, Maarten, but I think there is something fundamentally wrong
with the K3 ALC at the moment. I don't use SSB much and don't have a peak
reading meter. Like you on TUNE and in CW I get exactly the requested power,
but when I feed audio in to operate data modes I don't get the power I
requested. The difference in my case is that I get almost twice the
requested power, and it never backs down to the requested power so I have to
use the audio drive level to regulate the output, which is not very
convenient. In SSB I cannot be confident that when I select 100W the peak
output is really being limited to that power.

I have re-done the power calibration and I have the TX Gain setting at zero.
I cannot see any reason why the radio should produce more power than that
selected with the power control. This was not a problem with earlier
firmware releases. It has reached the point that I am losing confidence in
the whole concept of software defined radios. Working with computers, I have
probably wasted many days of my life on problems that were caused by bugs,
and now it seems there is no escape from them in my hobby either.

-----
Julian, G4ILO. K2 #392  K3 #222.
http://www.g4ilo.com/ G4ILO's Shack   http://www.ham-directory.com/ Ham
Directory    http://www.g4ilo.com/kcomm.html KComm for Elecraft K2 and K3 
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