[Elecraft] K3. FD shutdown

[Fred Jensen]

This is similar to the fellow who tells his doctor, "It hurts when I do 
this." Doctor replies, "Don't do that. Fifty bucks, pay on the way 
out."  In your case, your K3 doesn't like FD, "don't do that." [:-)

Seriously, with that low a serial # [mine is 642], strange things can 
and do happen. I took mine to Pershing County NV for the 7QP.  It worked 
fine. When I got back home, it didn't and I was really carefulpacking it 
into the truck. Based on an almost countable infinity of previous posts 
here over the years, I pulled and reseated the front panel, and made 
sure all the TMP connectors were fully seated.  Now it works like its 
old self.  Your symptoms are a little different... it doesn't like FD 
... and it works now, but you might give that a try and then wait til 
the end of June 2018 to see if it fixed the problem[s].

Some of the switches on mine are getting a bit unreliable, sometimes 
BAND DOWN disables the ATU.  Wife has a needlepoint hobby which is every 
bit as expensive as ham radio, at least at my level[my stuff is more 
expensive, but she buys A LOT more of hers than I do mine, and then she 
pays to have Ian frame it].  We have an "Equal Hobby Allowance" policy, 
I'm waaay ahead in my account, I may sell may at a real discount to some 
young new ham who needs a radio and get a shiny new K3s.

73,

Fred ("Skip") K6DGW
Sparks NV USA
Washoe County DM09dn

On 6/29/2017 8:49 AM, Nr4c wrote:
> My K3 (s/n 453x) has been used for FD and other outdoor events plus use at home (till I  rec'd one of the first K3Ss). On at least 2 events in past year it has exhibited little output power. Batteries were checked, cables checked and replaced, to no avail. Display did not show SWR when TUNE button pressed (only "--"). Another K3 was swapped in and everything was fine.
> I took radio home and it worked perfectly.
>
> This year at FD, it quit at around midnight. Even tried <12 W to verify LPA. Result little or almost no power. Checked LPA screws but they were tight.  Voltage on radio was just above 12v on TX. Took it home and it shows no sign of low power. It has worked well all week.
>
> Reloaded FW from Elecraft and reloaded last CONFIG file (May 2017 just before first event of year and did TX cal at this time).
>
> Now hooked to dummy load and running stress test with FD CW msg on repeat.
>
> Anyone have ideas?
>
> Sent from my iPhone
> ...nr4c. bill
>
>
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