K3 - Wild Fan Action

[Dave Hachadorian]

I used a pair of K3's this weekend in the NAQP CW contest.
This is a low power contest, so the amps were turned off,
the K3's were set for 100 watts instead of their usual 50
watts, and I was wearing lightweight headphones, so I could
hear any background noise in the room.

I found that whichever K3 was being used to call CQ and run
stations had its fan constantly throttling up and down. Both
radios acted the same. Most of the time, when I went into
transmit mode, the fan would slow down! Maybe the
temperature comparator is sensitive to small changes in
supply voltage? The p.s. is a 35 amp analog Astron, and only
one radio is transmitting at any given time. At any rate, it
was mildly distracting. Maybe there should be some
hysteresis built into the fan controller. Maybe there could
be a "constant run" fan setting for contest use. I'd rather
have the fans run constantly, rather than listening to them
spin up and down.

Dave Hachadorian, K6LL
Yuma, AZ






















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[Ken Wagner K3IU]

Hi Dave:

Go to CONFIG: KPA3 . I should say "nor." Rotate the VFO A knob clockwise and select what speed (Fn1 - Fn4) you want the fan to continuously run at. Exit from CONFIG menu.
A quick check shows that everything seems to work fine in that configuration. I do NOT know if the fan will now speed up if a certain preset temp is reached.

Thanks for the contacts in NAQP.

73,
Ken K3IU

Dave Hachadorian wrote:

I used a pair of K3's this weekend in the NAQP CW contest. 
This is a low power contest, so the amps were turned off, 
the K3's were set for 100 watts instead of their usual 50 
watts, and I was wearing lightweight headphones, so I could 
hear any background noise in the room.

I found that whichever K3 was being used to call CQ and run 
stations had its fan constantly throttling up and down. Both 
radios acted the same. Most of the time, when I went into 
transmit mode, the fan would slow down! Maybe the 
temperature comparator is sensitive to small changes in 
supply voltage? The p.s. is a 35 amp analog Astron, and only 
one radio is transmitting at any given time. At any rate, it 
was mildly distracting. Maybe there should be some 
hysteresis built into the fan controller. Maybe there could 
be a "constant run" fan setting for contest use. I'd rather 
have the fans run constantly, rather than listening to them 
spin up and down.

Dave Hachadorian, K6LL
Yuma, AZ
  

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