K3 EMI

[Steve Ellington]

I touched the VFO knob and got a little static discharge. Here's what I
noticed.

1. Display backlight turned off but I could still see the display.
2. Frequency jumped about 3 khz up.
3. Power output jumped to full.
4. Turning the VFO knob caused the display backlight to return to normal.

I had been driving the amp. at about 600 watts and suddenly I was running
1200 due to the K3's power output increasing to 110 watts.
I powered off/on the K3 and everything seems ok. I'll try to remember to
discharge on something else this winter!

Steve
N4LQ
[hidden email]

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[Gary Bartlett VE1RGB]

Hi, Steve:

        I had a similar problem with K3 #095 here on a dry winter day except
that in my case the static discharge shut the rig completely down followed
by a rig re-boot.  That, of course, frightened me half to death after about
three occurrences.

        A bit of investigation revealed that the main VFO control is
supposed to be grounded to the chassis but in my kit-built K3, my DVM
quickly showed that it was not.  When I had the radio in Aptos recently to
have the second receiver installed and some other things cleaned up, I asked
them to fix that problem which they did.  I meant to check the assembly
manual to see if there was a note in there similar to the notes in the K2
about making sure that paint and/or tape didn't preclude adequate grounding
of components to the chassis but I confess that I haven't done that.

        We are already in ESD season up here in NS and I've seen no evidence
of recurrence of that issue.  Something for you to check in any case.

        73,
        Gary, VE1RGB

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Ellington
Sent: October 31, 2009 1:24 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [Elecraft] K3 EMI

I touched the VFO knob and got a little static discharge. Here's what I
noticed.

1. Display backlight turned off but I could still see the display.
2. Frequency jumped about 3 khz up.
3. Power output jumped to full.
4. Turning the VFO knob caused the display backlight to return to normal.

I had been driving the amp. at about 600 watts and suddenly I was running
1200 due to the K3's power output increasing to 110 watts.
I powered off/on the K3 and everything seems ok. I'll try to remember to
discharge on something else this winter!

Steve
N4LQ
[hidden email]

______________________________________________________________
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

______________________________________________________________
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