OT - K2 Keyer problems
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Recently I had my K2 (#2511) upgraded with the A to B mod kits. I have had some odd experiences with it since then.
When I get up each morning I need to stoke the fire to warm the house up. Sometimes the morning temperature is in the high 40s (F). Normally it is in the low 50s range. Not long after breakfast, both mine and Sam's, I am on the air working into Oklahoma. The shack temperature today was 55 when I started. My keyer was set at 23 wpm but the speed kept jumping all over the place. The display would show the new speed but only after I had flubbed a few characters due to the speed change. It would drop to 19 or jump to 28 wpm randomly. By the end of the contact (60 minutes) the shack temperature had risen to 58 and the variations had lessened somewhat but they were still occurring. Do you, or anyone else, know what may cause these random speed variations? Is it the new firmware, the temperature, or some random thing? 2.04P 1.09 is the reading at start up to give you some idea of the firmware version. Before the upgrade it would jump very rarely. Now it jumps more often. However, due to the change in seasons the rig is going through larger temperature cycles than it had been. I am nowhere near the wood stove so it does get pretty chilly back here. Once I take down my Christmas tree I'll move back up into the front room but for now I need some way to limit the speed cycling. Should I turn the rig on an hour before I get on the air to help it stabilize? Cover it with a tea cozy? Put a space heater under it? Take down the tree and move near the wood stove? Or could it be something which changed with the upgrade? Any advice would be kindly appreciated, Kevin. KD5ONS _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com |
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Kevin,
Cold temperatures can aggravate and reveal marginal solder connections and socket/pin problems. I would recommend that you re-check all the soldering on the Control Board and re-seat the microprocessor in its socket to see if that helps. I doubt if you will find any device failures at the temperatures you are encountering - if the temperatures are below freezing, then you may be having marginal devices fail to work properly, but at 40 deg F, I doubt if any devices will fail - particularly those that read the control settings. Since you report that the speed changes are actually displayed, that says that the microprocessor *thinks* the pot setting has changed. There is a possibility that the speed pot itself is experiencing a failure at low temperatures and a pot replacement is in order. If you have ever used a control lube on your speed pot, then there could be a coating inside the pot element that is temperature sensitive, or such a lube coating may be something residual from the manufacturing process. Those are the only possible causes that I can think of at the moment. 73, Don W3FPR Kevin Rock wrote: > Recently I had my K2 (#2511) upgraded with the A to B mod kits. I have had some odd experiences with it since then. > > When I get up each morning I need to stoke the fire to warm the house up. Sometimes the morning temperature is in the high 40s (F). Normally it is in the low 50s range. Not long after breakfast, both mine and Sam's, I am on the air working into Oklahoma. The shack temperature today was 55 when I started. My keyer was set at 23 wpm but the speed kept jumping all over the place. The display would show the new speed but only after I had flubbed a few characters due to the speed change. It would drop to 19 or jump to 28 wpm randomly. By the end of the contact (60 minutes) the shack temperature had risen to 58 and the variations had lessened somewhat but they were still occurring. > > Do you, or anyone else, know what may cause these random speed variations? Is it the new firmware, the temperature, or some random thing? 2.04P 1.09 is the reading at start up to give you some idea of the firmware version. > > Before the upgrade it would jump very rarely. Now it jumps more often. However, due to the change in seasons the rig is going through larger temperature cycles than it had been. I am nowhere near the wood stove so it does get pretty chilly back here. Once I take down my Christmas tree I'll move back up into the front room but for now I need some way to limit the speed cycling. Should I turn the rig on an hour before I get on the air to help it stabilize? Cover it with a tea cozy? Put a space heater under it? Take down the tree and move near the wood stove? Or could it be something which changed with the upgrade? > Any advice would be kindly appreciated, > > Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com |
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