[Elecraft] [K3] Sub receiver intermittant failures

[Buck]

Check the obvious.  Are you sure you didn't accidentally turn down the 
RF and/or AF gain on the SubRx?  I know how easy it is to do.  I have 
seen me do it.

Buck, k4ia
Honor Roll
8BDXCC
EasyWayHamBooks.com

On 6/10/2020 2:26 PM, hawley, charles j jr wrote:
> Maybe you could remove the sub and send it for evaluation somewhat economically
> 
> Chuck Jack Hawley
> KE9UW
> 
> Sent from my iPhone, cjack
> 
>> On Jun 10, 2020, at 12:59 PM, Ray Albers <rayalbers at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I bought my K3 used. It's now a bit over six years old (S/N 8240). The
>> seller kindly included the manual, original invoice, a repair invoice and
>> even the Fred Cady book. The K3 was factory assembled, with a
>> factory-installed KRX3 subreceiver and the BNC auxiliary antenna connection.
>>
>> If I had bought a new K3 or K3S I probably would not have bothered getting
>> the subreceiver, but since I have it, I figured I may as well put it to
>> some use. I don't chase DX but the notion of experimenting with diversity
>> reception interested me. So I threw a chunk of wire over the roof and
>> connected it to the BNC input. Admittedly not a really good diversity
>> antenna (much too close to the main antenna, for one thing) but OK to play
>> with.  When I found that the Carrier Operated Relay was operating as I sent
>> CW, in order to protect the sub-receiver, I stopped until I could get and
>> install an Array Solutions Receiver Front End Protector.
>>
>> So I had many months of fun and even found that at times there was enough
>> diversity between the antennas to help with reception in the face of fast
>> QSB. And then suddenly the sub started failing.
>>
>> I check it when turning the radio on, and often the sub is working but
>> then after a while it stops. It doesn't seem to be correlated to
>> transmitting, i.e., it may stop after I've been sending but not always and
>> never right away. There has even been a time or two when it didn't work
>> initially but then came back to life after a while. Often it will work on
>> 20 and up but not on 80, 40, and 30.
>>
>> I've opened the radio, taken the cover off the sub, and poked, wiggled and
>> re-seated everything I could get my hands on. I've even tried this poking
>> while the radio was powered up and the sub was quiet, to see if any poking
>> could bring it to life. Nada.
>>
>> I suppose at this point the "right" thing to do would be to send the radio
>> to Elecraft and I may do that at some distant future point, but right now I
>> feel that I don't want the sub badly enough to warrant the expense and time.
>>
>> Of course if meanwhile anyone has a miracle cure to suggest, that'd be
>> great!
>>
>> Thanks for listening.
>>
>> 73
>> Ray K2HYD
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