[Elecraft] K3 intermittent low power issue

[K9IR]

Ken, thanks for the reply. Preliminary tests indicated I was having the issue with the LPA as well, so reseating the KPA3 wouldn't alone do the trick. My rig came back from Elecraft about a week or so ago. The issue ended up being with the LPA. Something heated up a diode that loosened the soldered connection, creating an intermittent with an associated transistor--which is why at times I would have full power and at other times no power. Usually the transistor fails entirely, so this was a bit more of a challenge--and of interest!--to the Elecraft support crew. But they did resolve it, as well as installing some other upgrades.
 
Nice to have Baby back ;-)!
 
73 Paula k9ir

From: N4OI - Ken [via Elecraft] <ml-node+s365791n7565626h45 at n2.nabble.com>
To: K9IR <pmuscian at sbcglobal.net> 
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 10:35 AM
Subject: Re: K3 intermittent low power issue


K9IR wrote
>[...] ended up working via email with Elecraft support, but unfortunately we couldn't resolve it, so the rig currently is in CA for repair ;-). I will be very curious to learn from them why the power issue occurred. 
>  
>73 Paula K9IR 
>
>From: N8XPQ -- [...] have you checked the connections of the KPA3 100w amplifier module. I have a friend that was experiencing a similar issue, and discovered that the module had become unseated somewhat causing intermittent RF power output issues. [...]My K3/100 serial number 6835, which is only about a month old, began having similar intermittent power problems.  For a while it appeared that the "tune" function always worked... but then that also dropped power intermittently.  I just reseated the KPA100 module, the connector board that it plugs into, and that sparsely populated RF board that is used when there is no internal tuner.  So far so good, but too early to tell.   

73 ES GOD BLESS U ES URS DE KEN N4OI  


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