[Elecraft] K3 Receiver troubleshooting
Rick Stealey
rstealey at hotmail.com
Tue Jul 15 11:01:12 EDT 2014
My K3 suffered a sudden loss of sensitivity this morning. Yes, there was lightning last night. The antenna input was grounded in an antenna switch but the receive antenna port was connected to a Beverage.
It appears to be normal in every other way. Transmitter ok. Receiver functions work, like preamp, attenuator. But the level is down >60 db.
It is the same on both the antenna jack and the receive antenna port on the KXV3.
I have some lab equipment (HP sig gen, spectrum analyzer) and made some quick checks but I need a sanity check:
With -40 dbm into the receive antenna port the S meter is S7.
With -30 dbm input, The spectrum analyzer connected to the IF output shows -80 dbm. I'm assuming this is WAY off, and should approximate the level of the input signal.
So I think I can safely assume the problem is not in the IF or downstream, but a likely culprit would maybe be a switching diode in the receive path? Any ideas?
Rick K2XT
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