[Elecraft] glow on KAt3?
Gary Smith
Gary at doctorgary.net
Thu Jan 1 15:12:11 EST 2009
Last night I was at my girlfriend's house and I'd assembled a dipole
I made from a pair of short multi band radials from a Butternut made
of 300 ohm ribbon line. I placed this around the corners of the
living room and was looking for the source of RFI in her house
(turned out to be her APEX TV set even when turned off).
Though the dipole is resonant on 40M I used the K3 tuner to adjust
for 80M. It settled on a 1.6-1 adjustment.
I had just moved the new Astron VS-35M PS and must have bumped the
crowbar control in that the power to the K3 went out when I started
transmitting with a few dits. The voltage on the PS showed zero but
the lights were on. I restarted the PS and the voltage went back to
normal. I discovered the overcurrent was set very low (it was set for
about 5 amps max) and restoring the current setting to the proper
location got everything working again.
But... before the crowbar tripped I could swear I noticed a glow on
the KAT3 through the ventilation slots on the top panel & the color
was about the same yellow as the LED on the RF board. As there is the
shielding around the RF deck from the KPA3, this could not have been
light reflected from that diode. The glow looked to be from right
about where the sockets for the coax wires attach but on the inside
of the ATU. I didn't notice that earlier or after but it did catch my
attention just before the power supply cut off.
It was New Year's Eve but I hadn't hit the EggNog yet so I'm
wondering if there's an issue, something expected or if this was
caused by an undigested bit of gruel?
The PA seems to be fine as does the KAT3. Are there any checks I
might do to see if an error ode of any kind is present? Nothing shows
on the display. All seems normal but that localized yellow glow has
me wondering.
Thanks,
Gary
KA1J
P.S. Happy New Year to everyone!
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