KAT-500 Increasingly Erratic

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KAT-500 Increasingly Erratic

DAVID INGEBRIGHT
I Have a KAT500/KPA 500 combo that I built as kits two yrs ago. The KPA-500 is a pleasure to operate but the KAT500 has been increasingly erratic to the point where it  no longer tunes 7Mhz, even connected to a cantenna. The other bands are erratic and sometimes it is several tries. Powering down and back up helps sometimes. I'm not sure the "memories" are there. I'm switching between bands multiple times and looking for tuning action on the radio control panel. Some bands tune well sometimes and other times they do not. Possible intermittent. Troubleshooting has caused me to look over my antenna system very carefully, fixing some things and eliminating everything in my (G5RV) antenna system until I was down to a new piece of coax and the cantenna. So what to do? All those little relays, is there anything a guy can do on his own?
Thanks de Dave WB7ELY
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Re: KAT-500 Increasingly Erratic

Alan - G4GNX
Check for dry joints on the wiring to all of the antenna connectors.

73,

Alan. G4GNX


------ Original Message ------
From: [hidden email]
To: "[hidden email]" <[hidden email]>
Sent: 07/04/2021 23:41:44
Subject: [Elecraft] KAT-500 Increasingly Erratic

>I Have a KAT500/KPA 500 combo that I built as kits two yrs ago. The KPA-500 is a pleasure to operate but the KAT500 has been increasingly erratic to the point where it  no longer tunes 7Mhz, even connected to a cantenna. The other bands are erratic and sometimes it is several tries. Powering down and back up helps sometimes. I'm not sure the "memories" are there. I'm switching between bands multiple times and looking for tuning action on the radio control panel. Some bands tune well sometimes and other times they do not. Possible intermittent. Troubleshooting has caused me to look over my antenna system very carefully, fixing some things and eliminating everything in my (G5RV) antenna system until I was down to a new piece of coax and the cantenna. So what to do? All those little relays, is there anything a guy can do on his own?
>Thanks de Dave WB7ELY

>

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KAT-500 Increasingly Erratic

ANDY DURBIN
In reply to this post by DAVID INGEBRIGHT
"The KPA-500 is a pleasure to operate but the KAT500 has been increasingly erratic to the point where it  no longer tunes 7Mhz, even connected to a cantenna. The other bands are erratic and sometimes it is several tries."

I assume you are saying that a manually initiated autotune attempt  fails.  If so, what power are you using for your tune attempts?   Does autotune become more reliable if you increase power?

If your problem is not with autotune perhaps you could provide more detail.

FYI - this problem report was submitted to Elecraft some time ago:

Report KAT04 (partial)

"
Description of issue:

Fault Code 01 (No match) is set immediately when KAT500 manual tune is attempted with  5 W or less.

With a very good match tune will fail even when 15 W is used.

Faulting as "No match" is an inappropriate response for a tune failure with a perfect match.  Should there be a different response such as "increase power" when tune power gives no reflected power reading?"

73,
Andy, k3wyc






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