[Elecraft] K3: Do you "Juice" your K3?

[Dave Hachadorian]

During the NAQP RTTY, at one point I was calling a solid 
stream of CQ's at 100 watts output on RTTY and not getting 
any replies. I was watching the PA Temp, and it climbed up 
to 65C and looked like it wanted to keep rising pretty 
quickly. I think hi temp shutdown is at 84C. I backed off on 
my CQ's and used the other radio for a while. I had the fan 
speed locked on step 4. All of this was at 13.8VDC. With any 
kind of heavy duty usage, I don't think cranking up the 
voltage is a good idea. A better idea is to buy an AL-1500 
or similar low drive amp, which will give you 1500 watts out 
with 50 watts of drive. NOW, we are talking "juice." ;)

Dave Hachadorian, K6LL
Yuma, AZ