[Elecraft] K3 Strange Problem

[Joe Ford]

Guy, Don



I don't get the emails just the digest show your emails to me. 


I agree the antenna should be the first place and in fact I did look at it hanging in the air but I have not lowered it to give it a closer inspection. Unfortunately my antenna analyzer is one MFJ's first and only gives SWR and Resistance. It did not really show anything helpful. Since it is an 88' long dipole it isn't resonant any any of the bands. 


Here is what is strange about this. I have only had the K3 a few weeks. I did not have a problem tuning on 30m. The first time the problem occurred was when I went SPLIT then turned on the SUB rx. Immediately it gave the HIGH SWR warning. Then I tried tune and got the strange tuning behavior. So I began to trouble shoot the problem. I tried different combinations of settings, etc. The antenna comes in to an antenna switch with one position on the K3 and the other on the K2. I wanted to eliminate the switch and connect directly to the coax coming from the balun. To get to where I could make that connection I had to completely disconnect everything from the back of the K3 and move close enough to reach that coax, thus bypassing the switch. So I did that and when I tried a tune I got the same result, it tuned to the same spot and stopped. No difference. Then I redid all the cables to the rear of the K3. And guess what. This time when I hit tune it went
 right to 1:1.2 without hardly any relay action. So did some tests, retuning and so forth. It continued to work okay. I even had a qso with a good rst. 


That was last Saturday. On Sunday afternoon, I came in and tuning on 30m found a dx station working pileup. That is when I went A>B, SPLIT and then turned on SUB. As soon as I hit the paddle and it went to transmit, the HIGH SWR message appeared and when I tried ANT TUNE it tuned just like it had before. SWR shows max and RF out shows min while relays are working, then it SWR drops to 1:1.8 to 2 and power out shows 100w (what it is set for).  I don't know why the problem went away when it did, I have not been able to duplicate again. d


I'll take down the ant and inspect it.But it works fine on all the other bands. Tunes with no problems all other bands. The KAT100 tunes but the KAT3 doesn't?


Thanks, guys, for your suggestions. 


Joe
k4nvj