[Elecraft] K3 High SWR

[Igor Sokolov]

My friend, R9DX is in Madeira now. He has K3 and Buddipole antenna with him 
and planned to operate in CQWW SSB this coming weekend. He has put up 
buddipole and tuned it with AA-530 antenna analyzer to 1: 1  SWR. It all 
worked well with 100w output on that band. Then he desided to try 28 MHz 
without retuning antenna. He has switched ATU in and tuned it. He has easily 
obtained 1 : 1 SWR reading on the radio. Then he tried to transmit and 
something happened inside. He smelled somethind burning and SWR became 4 :1. 
He assumed that may be something happened to ATU. So he went back to 15 m, 
switched ATU off and still got 4:1 SWR on the display. Switching to low 
power (10W) which should exclude the problems associated with KPA3 produced 
the same 4:1 SWR.  Dowble checking antenna with AA-530 shows perfect SWR on 
15 m.
Any idea where to look?  I suspect it might be SWR bridge but then is there 
something he can do (like disabling SWR bridge at his own risk) having no 
spare parts around?


73, Igor UA9CDC