[Elecraft] SWR question

[Don Wilhelm]

Barthold,

Another way to accomplish that is to power off the KPA500 and bypass the 
KAT500.  Then the K3 will display the SWR.  There are several ways to 
"skin that cat".

Actually, if you 'train' the KAT500 to your antennas and want to monitor 
the status of your antennas, put the KAT500 into manual mode after the 
training (you should do that anyway) - and then monitor the SWR seen by 
the LEDs on either the KPA500 or the KAT500.  If there is a significant 
change, then take a look at your antenna(s) with your antenna analyzer.  
If no significant change in the SWR indication, then just keep operating 
because all is well.

73,
Don W3FPR

On 9/14/2016 11:01 PM, Barthold Lichtenbelt wrote:
> Hi Don,
>
> Ok, this all came from Dick saying that you can see the "bypass SWR" that
> the KAT500 measures with the PC utility. But if you don't have that hooked
> up, a simple trick seemed to be to put the KAT500 in bypass mode, and see
> what the KPA500 tells you on its SWR led bar. That can give you an idea of
> the SWR past the KAT500 (thus the Antenna SWR). Of course, if the SWR is too
> far off the KPA500 will complain.
>
> If you have a P3 with TX sensor, and you want to know your antenna SWR, then
> putting the P3 TX sensor after the KAT500 seems like the way to go. That way
> you can quickly see how well your antenna is actually matched to the
> feedline, and you can use the KAT500 in tune mode (and not in bypass mode).
>
> Of course, a real antenna analyzer (I use a RigExpert 600) will be more
> accurate.
>
> Hope that explains it Don!
>