[Elecraft] KAT500 anomaly this morning

[iain macdonnell - N6ML]

Jim,

Did you try removing and re-applying DC power to your KAT500? It's
very unlikely that re-downloading the firmware would have fixed
anything.

73,

    ~iain / N6ML


On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 5:31 AM, Jim Sheldon <w0eb at cox.net> wrote:
> Woke up early and when I woke up the station, the KAT500 turned on when the P/S turned on, but instead of being in AUTO where it was when I shut it off (yes, I shut the KAT500 off first with the front panel button) it came up locked in MANual and the mode button would NOT turn it off or cause it to do anything else.  No amount of button pushing in any combination would make it do anything but sit there with it's one green light on and stare back at me.
>
> Thinking there was a front panel board, holding the switches and LED's, that might have come partially unplugged in shipping, I pulled the top cover - WOW that is one nice looking board in there, but no front panel, everything is on the main board and it's all soldered in and 99 percent (except for the relays, MASSIVE toroids and air wound coils), surface mount.  Nothing plug-in here.
>
> Hooked up the RS-232 cable and ran the utility program.  It would not communicate with the tuner giving me a screen indicating that the KAT500 was waiting for the power button or a firmware download and after a while would timeout with the KAT500 not responding message.
>
> Could find nothing in the manual that indicated how to force a firmware load, so I in my "banging" mood, told the Utility program to install new firmware (I had downloaded the current version from Elecraft), started pressing and/or holding buttons in various combinations.  Somewhere in all this, I managed to hit on the right combination to force it to accept the firmware download from the utility program and all is again well.
>
> I have no idea what caused the glitch (cosmic rays, Boeing's EMP missile flying over wichita, or Murphy crawling around in there), but it's apparently back up and running.  I'll keep an eye on it over the coming days (weeks, maybe if it doesn't happen again) and try to find out what circumstances caused the problem.  Meanwhile, Elecraft (separate message will be sent to support), PLEASE publish the RESET and FORCE FIRMWARE LOAD instructions where the casual observer can find it.  Having that info in the operating manual would have been a HUGE help this morning.
>
> Jim Sheldon - W0EB
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