2M internal transverter stability

[grumss]

Gday all,
Ive been playing with a elecraft k3 (with internal 2M).
Im finding the 2m stability awful! (audible drift on ssb!!!) I thinking of putting a murata style crystal heater on the 116mhz? crystal to improve the drift.
I wonder if anybody has tried this or has a better solution?
cheers, Graham VK3XDK

Hi Again, the modification has been tried.
It does improve stability a little but doesnt seem to be worth the effort!!

It seems the heat on TX is transferring to the crystal causing it to drift (maybe the compensation cant keep up) Raising the crystals off the board may help?

There must be some other ways (any ideas anybody??)

[Brett Howard]

Soon there is going to be an option that will allow one to synchronize
the 2Meter transverter with the K3's LO.  This should help quite a
bit.  In the event that you want stability and accuracy there will
also soon be an option that will allow one to input a 10Mhz reference
and the K3 will regularly calibrate its internal LO using the 10Mhz
input.

~Brett (N7MG)

On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 8:00 PM, grumss <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Gday all,
> Ive been playing with a elecraft k3 (with internal 2M).
> Im finding the 2m stability awful! (audible drift on ssb!!!) I thinking of
> putting a murata style crystal heater on the 116mhz? crystal to improve the
> drift.
> I wonder if anybody has tried this or has a better solution?
> cheers, Graham VK3XDK
>
> Hi Again, the modification has been tried.
> It does improve stability a little but doesnt seem to be worth the effort!!
>
> It seems the heat on TX is transferring to the crystal causing it to drift
> (maybe the compensation cant keep up) Raising the crystals off the board may
> help?
>
> There must be some other ways (any ideas anybody??)
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/2M-internal-transverter-stability-tp6267516p6267516.html
> Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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[Johnny Siu]

I also experienced frequency drift in my K144V. The drift is worse than other multimode v/u radios.  However, it is ok to use k144v in FM.  I am awaiting product enhancement in k144v.  Having said that, HF of K3 shown good frequency stability.

Sent from my  iPhone 4

grumss <[hidden email]> 於 2011年4月13日 上午11:00 寫道：

> Gday all,
> Ive been playing with a elecraft k3 (with internal 2M).
> Im finding the 2m stability awful! (audible drift on ssb!!!) I thinking of
> putting a murata style crystal heater on the 116mhz? crystal to improve the
> drift.
> I wonder if anybody has tried this or has a better solution?
> cheers, Graham VK3XDK
>
> Hi Again, the modification has been tried.
> It does improve stability a little but doesnt seem to be worth the effort!!
>
> It seems the heat on TX is transferring to the crystal causing it to drift
> (maybe the compensation cant keep up) Raising the crystals off the board may
> help?
>
> There must be some other ways (any ideas anybody??)
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/2M-internal-transverter-stability-tp6267516p6267516.html
> Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html

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[grumss]

Thanks for the replies,
I would like to get the stability reasonable before a locking or similar mod. (i think there's some basic oscillator compensation  issues?)
 A receiver in this class is greatly let down and WJST EME is out of the question unfortunately!
Ill be trying some more mods soon,
 Thinking about thermal coupling the thermistor more efficiently and raising the crystal to decrease the heat transfer.

Im a bit worried about the future locking mods. Im thinking that because of the transverters simplicity that the rigs main oscillator may be trying to compensate for a bad 2M LO oscillator!!

Im not going to get started on birdies :(

Cheers all, VK3XDK

[Geoffrey Mackenzie-Kennedy]

Graham,

As a temporary measure and if there is room, a "Thermal Jacket" for the
crystal made from a piece of foam packing material might help to reduce
drift.

If the pcb is being heated during transmit, then some other components
(including the pcb itself) in the transverter along with the crystal could
together be responsible for the drift in frequency. I do not know how
difficult it would be to keep the transverter cool, because I do not own
one.

73,
Geoff
GM4ESD


 "grumss" <[hidden email]> wrote on April 13, 2011 4:00 AM

> Gday all,
> Ive been playing with a elecraft k3 (with internal 2M).
> Im finding the 2m stability awful! (audible drift on ssb!!!) I thinking of
> putting a murata style crystal heater on the 116mhz? crystal to improve
> the
> drift.
> I wonder if anybody has tried this or has a better solution?
> cheers, Graham VK3XDK
>
> Hi Again, the modification has been tried.
> It does improve stability a little but doesnt seem to be worth the
> effort!!
>
> It seems the heat on TX is transferring to the crystal causing it to drift
> (maybe the compensation cant keep up) Raising the crystals off the board
> may
> help?
>
> There must be some other ways (any ideas anybody??)

>


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