Elecraft

KX3 s/n 1965 on the air - and a power-up question

Classic

List

Threaded

3 messages Options

n2htt

KX3 s/n 1965 on the air - and a power-up question

I'm very excited to get my new KX3 on the air, and during my initial
exploration of the rig, I discovered something unexpected. It appears
that the rig will not power on if there is no antenna attached. I
noticed this first when I disconnected the coax to change the antenna
setup while the rig was on and in receive mode - the rig immediately
shut down. Then with the antenna disconnected I tried to power up - no
response. After reconnecting the antenna, everything behaved normally.

I did not find any mention of this in the manual. I don't have an ATU
installed, perhaps that might have an effect.

I am running from an external 20A power supply (a venerable TenTec
252M), and the load is RG 8X connected to an LDG Z-11 autotuner,
feeding an outdoor dipole.

If this is normal behavior, does it have implications for doing
firmware updates? Must the rig have some kind of load attached in
order to power on to connect to the computer?

In all other respects everything is working fine and I am very pleased
with the rig. My first CW contact was Bulgaria on 10w from the east
coast!

73
Mike N2HTT
______________________________________________________________
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

Matt Maguire

Re: KX3 s/n 1965 on the air - and a power-up question

This doesn't seem like normal behaviour.

If you go into the menu and look at the "ATU MD" setting, is it set to "NOT INST"? If you set it to that value, and turn the radio off, do you observe the same behaviour?

73, Matt VK2ACL

On 29/09/2012, at 2:43 PM, Michael Aiello <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I'm very excited to get my new KX3 on the air, and during my initial
> exploration of the rig, I discovered something unexpected. It appears
> that the rig will not power on if there is no antenna attached. I
> noticed this first when I disconnected the coax to change the antenna
> setup while the rig was on and in receive mode - the rig immediately
> shut down. Then with the antenna disconnected I tried to power up - no
> response. After reconnecting the antenna, everything behaved normally.
>
> I did not find any mention of this in the manual. I don't have an ATU
> installed, perhaps that might have an effect.
>
> I am running from an external 20A power supply (a venerable TenTec
> 252M), and the load is RG 8X connected to an LDG Z-11 autotuner,
> feeding an outdoor dipole.
>
> If this is normal behavior, does it have implications for doing
> firmware updates? Must the rig have some kind of load attached in
> order to power on to connect to the computer?
>
> In all other respects everything is working fine and I am very pleased
> with the rig. My first CW contact was Bulgaria on 10w from the east
> coast!
>
> 73
> Mike N2HTT
> ______________________________________________________________
> 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

Lyle Johnson

Re: KX3 s/n 1965 on the air - and a power-up question

In reply to this post by n2htt

Sounds like the ground return in the power connector wiring is open.

73,

Lyle

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 28, 2012, at 9:43 PM, Michael Aiello <[hidden email]> wrote: