K3 Receiver Failure on Curacao
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All:
Here on Curacao, one of the members' K3 stopped receiving abruptly this morning, after he had called a couple of times and while he was just listening. He said it sounded like someone disconnected the antenna. Neither the Main nor Subreceiver are hearing signals. Using Antenna 1, Antenna 2, or RX antenna inputs makes no difference. The P3 display reflects changing the changing frequency (in digits, at top) with the VFOs, but the noise pattern displayed does not change. We've eliminated everything outside of the radio in the RF path as a cause. He went through the troubleshooting section of the manual. No Joy. This radio was carried down for the contest, and has only been here for 2 weeks in our air-conditioned shack. No danger of salt air contamination, which over time has "bad effects" on radios here! Is there a "reset defaults" command to return the radio to a known pristine state, lest some parameter have been changed inadvertently? He reportedly needed such a command for his P3 before travelling to Curacao last week. Thanks for any guidence. He'd rather not pack it up for travel back to the States yet! (BTW, the PJ2T Multi-Multi operation this past weekend in CQWW CW was an all-K3 affair, with five stations. No failures, no problems, and the largest CQWW CW score ever for us! We appear to be second or third Worldwide Multi-Multi.) 73, Jeff PJ2/K8ND [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 |
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Jeff,
The K3 Manual describes a process to force a firmware download if "you accidentally load an old or incompatible firmware version and find the K3 unresponsive", and you might try that. Page 45 of the manual which you could download from the Elecraft web site. 1. Unplug from the power supply and wait 5 seconds 2. Plug back in 3. HOLD the K3s power switch in and after about 10 seconds you'll see the TX LED flash 4. Load the correct firmware version 73, Hoop K9QJS On Nov 28, 2013, at 7:28 , [hidden email] wrote: All: Here on Curacao, one of the members' K3 stopped receiving abruptly this morning, after he had called a couple of times and while he was just listening. He said it sounded like someone disconnected the antenna. Neither the Main nor Subreceiver are hearing signals. Using Antenna 1, Antenna 2, or RX antenna inputs makes no difference. The P3 display reflects changing the changing frequency (in digits, at top) with the VFOs, but the noise pattern displayed does not change. We've eliminated everything outside of the radio in the RF path as a cause. He went through the troubleshooting section of the manual. No Joy. This radio was carried down for the contest, and has only been here for 2 weeks in our air-conditioned shack. No danger of salt air contamination, which over time has "bad effects" on radios here! Is there a "reset defaults" command to return the radio to a known pristine state, lest some parameter have been changed inadvertently? He reportedly needed such a command for his P3 before travelling to Curacao last week. Thanks for any guidence. He'd rather not pack it up for travel back to the States yet! (BTW, the PJ2T Multi-Multi operation this past weekend in CQWW CW was an all-K3 affair, with five stations. No failures, no problems, and the largest CQWW CW score ever for us! We appear to be second or third Worldwide Multi-Multi.) 73, Jeff PJ2/K8ND [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 |
Re: K3 Receiver Failure on Curacao
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In reply to this post by Jeffrey Maass
There is a parameter initialization (EEINIT) procedure in the K3 owners manual. You will want to save the configuration first, because it resets all calibration and configuration, and you will need to be able to repeat all that or restore the configuration.
I presume you have a K3 Utility and access to the owners manual and a working PC connection to the radio. Reloading firmware might or might not help, and is less disruptive. Dick, K6KR Sent from my iPhone > On Nov 28, 2013, at 7:28, [hidden email] wrote: > > All: > > Here on Curacao, one of the members' K3 stopped receiving abruptly this morning, after he had called a couple of times and while he was just listening. He said it sounded like someone disconnected the antenna. > > Neither the Main nor Subreceiver are hearing signals. Using Antenna 1, Antenna 2, or RX antenna inputs makes no difference. > > The P3 display reflects changing the changing frequency (in digits, at top) with the VFOs, but the noise pattern displayed does not change. > > We've eliminated everything outside of the radio in the RF path as a cause. He went through the troubleshooting section of the manual. No Joy. > > This radio was carried down for the contest, and has only been here for 2 weeks in our air-conditioned shack. No danger of salt air contamination, which over time has "bad effects" on radios here! > > Is there a "reset defaults" command to return the radio to a known pristine state, lest some parameter have been changed inadvertently? He reportedly needed such a command for his P3 before travelling to Curacao last week. > > Thanks for any guidence. He'd rather not pack it up for travel back to the States yet! > > (BTW, the PJ2T Multi-Multi operation this past weekend in CQWW CW was an all-K3 affair, with five stations. No failures, no problems, and the largest CQWW CW score ever for us! We appear to be second or third Worldwide Multi-Multi.) > > 73, Jeff PJ2/K8ND > > [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 |
Re: K3 Receiver Failure on Curacao
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In reply to this post by Jeffrey Maass
Although you got plenty of replies concerning possible firmware problems,
your symptoms sound a lot like what happened to one of my K3s recently that in the end turned out to be a faulty KXV3, the so-called "Transverter Interface" that also supports the RX ANT I/O and the I/F OUT. If you have a sub-rx with a dedicated input (the "AUX RF" BNC connector beneath the ANT2 SO239), try connecting an antenna to it and see if the sub-rx works. That connector bypasses the KXV3 whereas ANT1, ANT2 and RX ANT IN all go through it. In my case, that showed that the sub-rx and lots of the firmware was working, suggesting (but not proving) that the main rx was simply antenna-starved. If that is what you see, consider swapping in a KXV3 or KXV3A board from one of the other K3s on site. It is not a trivial amount of disassembly/reassembly of two K3s, but the manuals are downloadable and good. If the "dead" K3 works with the other KXV3, then you know what you need. GL & 73, /Rick N6XI On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 7:28 AM, <[hidden email]> wrote: > All: > > Here on Curacao, one of the members' K3 stopped receiving abruptly this > morning, after he had called a couple of times and while he was just > listening. He said it sounded like someone disconnected the antenna. > > Neither the Main nor Subreceiver are hearing signals. Using Antenna 1, > Antenna 2, or RX antenna inputs makes no difference. > > The P3 display reflects changing the changing frequency (in digits, at > top) with the VFOs, but the noise pattern displayed does not change. > > We've eliminated everything outside of the radio in the RF path as a > cause. He went through the troubleshooting section of the manual. No Joy. > > This radio was carried down for the contest, and has only been here for 2 > weeks in our air-conditioned shack. No danger of salt air contamination, > which over time has "bad effects" on radios here! > > Is there a "reset defaults" command to return the radio to a known > pristine state, lest some parameter have been changed inadvertently? He > reportedly needed such a command for his P3 before travelling to Curacao > last week. > > Thanks for any guidence. He'd rather not pack it up for travel back to > the States yet! > > (BTW, the PJ2T Multi-Multi operation this past weekend in CQWW CW was an > all-K3 affair, with five stations. No failures, no problems, and the > largest CQWW CW score ever for us! We appear to be second or third > Worldwide Multi-Multi.) > > 73, Jeff PJ2/K8ND > > [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 -- Rick Tavan N6XI Truckee, CA ______________________________________________________________ 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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