[Elecraft] K3 with KPA500 and KAT500 setup

[Don Wilhelm]

Slava,

You should "train" your tuner.  Do it on each band segment for each 
antenna that you will use.
Once that is accomplished, put the KAT500 into Manual and it will not 
try to re-tune based on the RF.

The problem is particularly susceptible to false re-tuning for SSB. Due 
to the changing amounts of RF in the transmitted speech patterns, if the 
tuner is left in auto, if the forward power is measured when the RF is 
low, and the reflected power is measured when the RF is higher, the 
computation will yield a high SWR even though the SWR is OK.

The firmware developer is working on methods to reduce this exposure, 
but in the meantime, "training" the tuner beforehand and running in 
Manual mode will help substantially.

73,
Don W3FPR

On 6/8/2014 8:55 PM, Slava Baytalskiy wrote:
> Hello everyone!
> Today i've finished my K-Line!
> K3/100 with a P3/SVGA with a KAT500 with a KPA500 with a W2 (although W2 has not yet been put in line).
> I think i got everything to play together nicely (not that its difficult, the way Elecraft makes it...)
> I've put the KAT3 in "bypass" on all the bands that i'm using.
> I've selected the per-band power setting.
> I'm currently setting all bands to about 15 watts of drive and getting around 300W out to the antenna (a K4KIO HexBeam).
> My question is about the operation of the tuner:
> when does it actually auto-tune? When the Auto light is flashing or when the relays are clicking?
> Sometimes it seems to start clicking right in the middle of a QSO. Is that normal? Does that interrupt my signal?
> Is there a way to teach it using SCAN or something? Or do i have to PTT and talk into the mic on every frequency in order for it to memorize the LC values?
> How do people normally do this?
>
>