[Elecraft] KXPA100 + KX3 ATU High SWR

[Kyle Krieg]

All, hopefully someone can tell me what I'm seeing is expected behavior, as
I've only had my KXPA100 attached to a end fed antenna at my house since I
got it and it's work great.

Yesterday I took the KXPA100 and KX3 out for field day.  We used two
antennas, a Alpha Antenna vertical and a GR8V dipole, each attached to the
KXPA100.  On the KX3, PA MODE is set to ON and TUN PWR is set to nor.  I
have both an ATU in my KX3 and KXPA100.  The KXPA100 has always been in
AUTO mode at home with no issues.

When we tuned the AA vertical from the KX3, we had no issues, full power @
100W, low SWR readings.  Everything was great.  Again we are in AUTO mode
since that's what it was last set to in my house.

Out in the field, when hooking the dipole up, I used the same procedure as
in my house, selecting a band/frequency, tapping the ATU TUNE button on the
KX3 to allow the ATU in the KXPA100 to tune the antenna to an 1:1 or 1:1.2
setting and then transmit.  Right after transmitting, 4 out of 5 times we
would get a flashing SWR fault light on the KXPA100 that would last for 8
seconds.  We switched coax and switched from ANT1 to ANT2 and received the
same results with the dipole.

Is this expected behavior?  I would think the KXPA100 would see that it has
a tune setting in memory and setting it to Auto mode, it wouldn't throw up
that SWR error?