[Elecraft] KAT500 and KPA500

[Wayne Burdick]

This will be our first high-power tuner, so we're taking the time to  
do it right. We have to ensure that it's safe and reliable as well as  
fast and accurate. Our KAT500 design experience will also lay the  
groundwork for future ATUs that handle higher power and offer  
additional features.

We have a small team working on it. Among other tasks, they've had to  
completely model the L-network and its strays, ensure that all  
components have a significant safety margin during worst-case  
operating stresses, and evaluate electrical and physical interactions  
with various radios and amplifiers. We're writing a new rapid-matching  
algorithm to work with the ATU's special sense circuitry. We just  
added an option module to provide a fully-protected sub receiver  
output port, so the K3's sub receiver can use the non-transmit KAT500  
antenna for diversity receive -- just like the KAT3.

Then there's the usual -- PCB, enclosure, manuals, and a considerable  
amount of lab and field testing. Right in the middle of vacation  
season :)

73,
Wayne
N6KR



On Aug 9, 2011, at 3:53 PM, Gary Gregory wrote:

> Considering the number of KPA-500 owners awaiting the KAT-500 along  
> with
> folks keeping their powder dry on ordering a KPA-500 until the  
> KAT-500 is
> released and the number of KPA-500 owners that have expressed a wish  
> to
> order a KAT-500 I would have thought we would have seen information  
> start to
> trickle out on more detail...:-(
>
> Maybe I am being too simplistic but I thought that an auto-tuner  
> would not
> be all that difficult to design and that given the time that has  
> passed
> since word was released that the KAT-500 was coming we would have  
> seen more
> Ele-News...:-(