[Elecraft] Running high power

[James Bennett]

Al - I’m not on the RFI reflector, but wanted to give you a quick reply here, since it in a way does involve Elecraft things. I have a K4D, KPA500, KAT500 and run RG-213 to a 30 foot tall Zerofive Flagpole vertical in the back yard - 10 various length radials. I put isolation transformers on each end of the coax run. The main RFI issue I had with this setup, running 500 watts, was that I’d turn on the overhead lights in our two garage door openers. A couple mix 31 ferrite clamp-ons at the opener motor box took care of that problem. Every situation is different. If you’ve got your equipment properly bonded together and grounded, then attack each device with ferrites. It’s a PITA, but not insurmountable.

Like Pete mentioned - there probably will be some RFI to deal with one way or the other. It’ll come from common mode current on your feed line or simply having some household device swamped by RF that it isn’t designed to handle. Trust the mix 31 ferrites - they are your friend! 

BTW - didn’t have that issue running my K4 at 100 watts - only when I got above about 350 did those lights turn on. :-(

Jim Bennett / K7TXA
Eagle, ID



> On Nov 22, 2022, at 3:36 PM, Al Lorona <alorona at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
> I'm really curious to ask those on this list who run high power:
> 
> Do you find that you get into all kinds of devices around the house?
> 
> I ran the KPA-500 in an extended manner for really the first time during the Phone SS and immediately:
> 
> 1/ interfered with FM broadcast radio.
> 
> 2/ caused the internet to drop out every time I keyed up on the lower bands.
> 
> Am I the only one? Those of you who run high power all the time... how do you deal with these annoyances?
> 
> Al  W6LX/4
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