K3 Ant 1?

[CX7TT]

Need help with some troubleshooting...here is the background:
After being gone for a month I returned to find that my iMac would not
boot up, the LP100 display had noticeably dimmed and my Steppir 3 ele
beam had super high SWR on 20m only. Although I had disconnected p/s and
antennas, we had an unusual amount of t-storm activity while gone. I
assumed that static discharges had somehow placed gremlins into my
shack. The local Apple guy was able to get the iMac running with no loss
of data and Larry kindly helped with getting the latest display chips
installed but that left the Steppir...why it worked great on 17-6m and
it was a mystery on 20m with  infinite swr across the band, even after
doing the calibrate procedure.
Yesterday I decided to upgrade the software of my Orion II and then
later the K3. After the O II upgrade I connected the Steppir and was
surprised to see that the swr was normal across the 20m band; I then
tried it on the K3, infinite swr...I then tried a dummy load on the k3
and yes, infinite swr but only on 20m. I then moved the dummy load to
Ant 2 and all was fine. I then hooked the Steppir to Ant 2 and
everything is working great.
So, here is the question. If the SO239 was bad at Ant1, why does it work
on all bands except 20m? Unfortunately, this was a factory built unit,
#250, so my knowledge of the insides is very sketchy.
What do I need to look for?
Tnx
Tom
CX7TT
aka CW7T in CQ WW cw...

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[Joe Subich, W4TV-4]

Tom,

>> So, here is the question. If the SO239 was bad at Ant1, why does it
>> work on all bands except 20m? Unfortunately, this was a factory
>> built unit, #250, so my knowledge of the insides is very sketchy.
>> What do I need to look for?

Before doing anything else, connect the dummy load to Ant 1, turn
on the ATU and run a couple ATU Tune cycles.  The K3 stores antenna
and tuner data on a per antenna per band basis and it's possible
that the data has gotten scrambled.  If nothing else running the
ATU Tune cycle might get the tuner off a "bad" setting ....

73,

    ... Joe, W4TV


On 11/26/2010 5:23 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

> Need help with some troubleshooting...here is the background:
> After being gone for a month I returned to find that my iMac would not
> boot up, the LP100 display had noticeably dimmed and my Steppir 3 ele
> beam had super high SWR on 20m only. Although I had disconnected p/s and
> antennas, we had an unusual amount of t-storm activity while gone. I
> assumed that static discharges had somehow placed gremlins into my
> shack. The local Apple guy was able to get the iMac running with no loss
> of data and Larry kindly helped with getting the latest display chips
> installed but that left the Steppir...why it worked great on 17-6m and
> it was a mystery on 20m with  infinite swr across the band, even after
> doing the calibrate procedure.
> Yesterday I decided to upgrade the software of my Orion II and then
> later the K3. After the O II upgrade I connected the Steppir and was
> surprised to see that the swr was normal across the 20m band; I then
> tried it on the K3, infinite swr...I then tried a dummy load on the k3
> and yes, infinite swr but only on 20m. I then moved the dummy load to
> Ant 2 and all was fine. I then hooked the Steppir to Ant 2 and
> everything is working great.
> So, here is the question. If the SO239 was bad at Ant1, why does it work
> on all bands except 20m? Unfortunately, this was a factory built unit,
> #250, so my knowledge of the insides is very sketchy.
> What do I need to look for?
> Tnx
> Tom
> CX7TT
> aka CW7T in CQ WW cw...
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> 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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Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

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Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html

[AC7AC]

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