[Elecraft] KPA500 - SWR into K3

[Fred Jensen]

Ron, maybe you saw the reply from Gary, VK1ZZ?  His fix worked, I don't 
know why however.  I have the KAT3 in bypass on all bands right now 
since getting the KAT500.  I thought that meant the K3 was connected 
straight thru to the KPA500 input circuit so it should see a fairly low 
SWR.  It usually runs around 1.1 or so.

So Gary's advice was, 1) Put the KAT3 into AUTO;  2) Tap ATU TUNE on the 
K3;  3) Hold ATU TUNE until the KAT3 goes into BYPASS.

When I did this, I think something also happened in the KAT500, although 
I'm not totally sure where the noise came from nor do I understand why 
it should have done anything.  The SWR on the K3 was now 1:1, but the 
SWR on the KPA500 was now high.  Retuning the KAT500 made it 1:1.

As I said, I can't explain this with the model I have in my head, time 
for a new model I guess.

And, thanks again to Alan for the monochrome waterfall option on the P3. 
  I can see signals I can't really hear initially, but when I get on 
them, I can then use the APF much more effectively and I've picked up 
several mults today.  10m is way above El Stinko today, but still fairly 
puny.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2013 Cal QSO Party 5-6 Oct 2013
- www.cqp.org

On 12/8/2012 4:01 PM, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:
> Fred, my K3 reports 1.7:1 into the KPA500 on 10 meters. 6 meters and 12
> meters are both 1.4:1. All other bands are 1.1:1 or better.
>
> That's with the K3's internal tuner in bypass of course.