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my K3 has some issues

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Chet S

my K3 has some issues

Good afternoon K3 folks,

I am new to this list and honored to be accepted.

Recently my K3 has experienced a couple of issues. I have been unable to get
a response from Elecraft e-mail or telephone service regarding the
situation. It's been almost two weeks now so thought I'd ask here if anyone
has some suggestions for me to try myself.

Here is the main concern:

When getting ready for CQWWDX SSB a few weeks ago, I went through setting
the transmit power on each band to drive an amplifier properly. The power
display seemed a bit sluggish and had a delay in indicating the SWR. Worse
yet, when I got to 40M, I could not crank the power up past about 30 watts;
it would momentarily display a higher number but then fall back to 30w. All
other bands cold be set higher.

First I reloaded all the current firmware in the main and subreceiver. No
change to 40M.

So next I went to the K3 Utility ver 1.20.1.15 to do a transmitter gain
calibration. Starting with the 5W calibration, it stepped thru the first few
bands OK but then stopped (I think on 40M) and displayed "ERR TXG" and the
message "calibration settled at 3.6W, TX gain failed because transmit power
did not reach the expected value".

In anticipation of having to send the radio to Elecraft where it might be
totally reset, I manually started recording all the configuration settings.
When I looked at my filter settings, I was shocked to see that filter 1 in
the subreceiver was set to 1.35. Huh? It should have been 2.80 !! Was my
config info corrupted? I reset that to 2.80 and then for the heck of it
tried again to set the power on 40M. That now worked "OK" and the swr and
pwr display during "tune" showed instantly on all bands. Something had
changed.

Next, I decided to rerun the TX calibration gain routine. This time if
successfully completed the 5w and 50w routines. However, with a good dummy
load, 40M displays an swr of 1.4, while the other bands are 1.0 or 1.1, so
something is still a little funny on 40M. What might that be?

I have now been considering doing a total reset of the radio using the EE
INIT function and then the self calibrations. Is this wise?

Any experiences or suggestions appreciated.

73,
Chet, N8RA

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NK7Z

Re: my K3 has some issues

Have you tried using a backed up config file? That may set everything
back as it was... This is assuming the config file took a hit...

73, and thanks,
Dave (NK7Z)
https://www.nk7z.net
ARRL Volunteer Examiner
ARRL Technical Specialist, RFI
ARRL Asst. Director, NW Division, Technical Resources

On 11/10/20 1:02 PM, Chet S wrote:

> Good afternoon K3 folks,
>
> I am new to this list and honored to be accepted.
>
> Recently my K3 has experienced a couple of issues. I have been unable to get
> a response from Elecraft e-mail or telephone service regarding the
> situation. It's been almost two weeks now so thought I'd ask here if anyone
> has some suggestions for me to try myself.
>
> Here is the main concern:
>
> When getting ready for CQWWDX SSB a few weeks ago, I went through setting
> the transmit power on each band to drive an amplifier properly. The power
> display seemed a bit sluggish and had a delay in indicating the SWR. Worse
> yet, when I got to 40M, I could not crank the power up past about 30 watts;
> it would momentarily display a higher number but then fall back to 30w. All
> other bands cold be set higher.
>
> First I reloaded all the current firmware in the main and subreceiver. No
> change to 40M.
>
> So next I went to the K3 Utility ver 1.20.1.15 to do a transmitter gain
> calibration. Starting with the 5W calibration, it stepped thru the first few
> bands OK but then stopped (I think on 40M) and displayed "ERR TXG" and the
> message "calibration settled at 3.6W, TX gain failed because transmit power
> did not reach the expected value".
>
> In anticipation of having to send the radio to Elecraft where it might be
> totally reset, I manually started recording all the configuration settings.
> When I looked at my filter settings, I was shocked to see that filter 1 in
> the subreceiver was set to 1.35. Huh? It should have been 2.80 !! Was my
> config info corrupted? I reset that to 2.80 and then for the heck of it
> tried again to set the power on 40M. That now worked "OK" and the swr and
> pwr display during "tune" showed instantly on all bands. Something had
> changed.
>
> Next, I decided to rerun the TX calibration gain routine. This time if
> successfully completed the 5w and 50w routines. However, with a good dummy
> load, 40M displays an swr of 1.4, while the other bands are 1.0 or 1.1, so
> something is still a little funny on 40M. What might that be?
>
> I have now been considering doing a total reset of the radio using the EE
> INIT function and then the self calibrations. Is this wise?
>
> Any experiences or suggestions appreciated.
>
> 73,
> Chet, N8RA
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> 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
> Message delivered to [hidden email]
>

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Joe Subich, W4TV-4

Re: my K3 has some issues

In reply to this post by Chet S

> Next, I decided to rerun the TX calibration gain routine. This time
> if successfully completed the 5w and 50w routines. However, with a
> good dummy load, 40M displays an swr of 1.4, while the other bands
> are 1.0 or 1.1, so something is still a little funny on 40M. What
> might that be?
Do you have an original KAT3 tuner installed in the K3? If so, it is
likely that the "bypass" setting has become corrupted on 40 M. Enable
the tuner, connect the rig to a good quality 50 +/- j0 dummy load and
TUNE into the dummy load then bypass the tuner and check the SWR. That
should reset the bypass settings.

73,

... Joe, W4TV

On 2020-11-10 4:02 PM, Chet S wrote:

Bill K9YEQ

Re: my K3 has some issues

In reply to this post by Chet S

I saw this error when I was doing a calibration. I had the KPA1500 powered on. Shut it off and that ended the problem. Good luck.

Bill
K9YEQ

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Chet S
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2020 3:02 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [Elecraft] my K3 has some issues

Good afternoon K3 folks,

I am new to this list and honored to be accepted.

Recently my K3 has experienced a couple of issues. I have been unable to get a response from Elecraft e-mail or telephone service regarding the situation. It's been almost two weeks now so thought I'd ask here if anyone has some suggestions for me to try myself.

Here is the main concern:

When getting ready for CQWWDX SSB a few weeks ago, I went through setting the transmit power on each band to drive an amplifier properly. The power display seemed a bit sluggish and had a delay in indicating the SWR. Worse yet, when I got to 40M, I could not crank the power up past about 30 watts; it would momentarily display a higher number but then fall back to 30w. All other bands cold be set higher.

First I reloaded all the current firmware in the main and subreceiver. No change to 40M.

So next I went to the K3 Utility ver 1.20.1.15 to do a transmitter gain calibration. Starting with the 5W calibration, it stepped thru the first few bands OK but then stopped (I think on 40M) and displayed "ERR TXG" and the message "calibration settled at 3.6W, TX gain failed because transmit power did not reach the expected value".

In anticipation of having to send the radio to Elecraft where it might be totally reset, I manually started recording all the configuration settings.
When I looked at my filter settings, I was shocked to see that filter 1 in the subreceiver was set to 1.35. Huh? It should have been 2.80 !! Was my config info corrupted? I reset that to 2.80 and then for the heck of it tried again to set the power on 40M. That now worked "OK" and the swr and pwr display during "tune" showed instantly on all bands. Something had changed.

Next, I decided to rerun the TX calibration gain routine. This time if successfully completed the 5w and 50w routines. However, with a good dummy load, 40M displays an swr of 1.4, while the other bands are 1.0 or 1.1, so something is still a little funny on 40M. What might that be?

I have now been considering doing a total reset of the radio using the EE INIT function and then the self calibrations. Is this wise?

Any experiences or suggestions appreciated.

73,
Chet, N8RA

______________________________________________________________
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 Message delivered to [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
Message delivered to [hidden email]