KX3 antenna tuner intermittend operation

Posted by DL6OAP on May 02, 2013; 8:16am
URL: http://elecraft.85.s1.nabble.com/KX3-antenna-tuner-intermittend-operation-tp7573335.html

Hi,

I received my KX3 one week ago and had some fun yesterday with it and an end-fed wire antenna roughly 20 mtrs long. The ATU worked great on getting the SWR down to 1:1 (not on 160) but there was an issue that concerns me: while transmitting, the ATU icon in the display went flashing and the SWR changed. I'm not sure if the relays clicked or not (have been using earphones) but I think so. At another instance, I saw the "HI CURR" warning in the display and heard a relay clicking (I was only running 4W and the power supply was a 25 A, 13.7 V linear). I think the tuner suddenly went into a kind of bypass mode at both instances.

There is a video on youtube showing exactly what happened to me.

Is anyone else here experiencing this? Is it related to antenna impedance or poor ground? Have been using the same wire with a K2 and its tuner and never noticed something like this.

Vy 73, Ralf, DL6OAP