I *think* I have found the solution to the problem of my K3 giving more power than is set on the power control.
A few weeks ago, I recall someone on this reflector posting a paragraph from the manual on the lines that "the K3 will perform a gain calibration if TUNE is performed with the power set to .1W, 5W or 50W." I can't find the original posting now, but I recall someone commenting that they hoped that was not the case, and that it really only did this when the CONFIG menu was in operation. Prior to the problem with the power levels occurring, I pressed the ATU button instead of the TUNE button when trying to tune my magnetic loop. I have TUN PWR set to 5W. The ATU tried to tune the grossly mismatched magnetic loop. After that, I pressed the TUNE button and tuned the loop for a match, and then pressed ATU TUNE again to tune the ATU back to what was presumably a 50 ohm load. It was at that point that I first noticed something didn't look quite right with the power levels. I set TUN PWR to 3W to see whether the K3 was obeying the power levels. It did on CW but was still giving more than double that power when a sine wave was injected into the audio. This morning I connected my power meter and did some more tests to confirm the problem I descrived last night. When I set TUN PWR to 5W and did a TUNE I noticed the power reading on the front panel display calibrating itself to 5W. After that I switched to DATA and injected a sine wave again and this time I got exactly the same power output - 5W. I might be interpreting this wrongly but it seems to me that the concern raised in the original post is justified, and that if a tuning power of .1W, 5W or 50W is used, the K3 will calibrate its power control whether you want it to or not. If this happens when a badly mismatched load is connected or perhaps when the ATU is in circuit and mis-tuned then the calibration will be completely wrong, with the results that I experienced. I think that the K3 power calibration should not occur unless you have specifically selected an option that requests it. By the way, if anyone wonders why I had the KAT3 active when using an external tuner as for the magnetic loop, the reason is simply that one of my antennas needs the KAT3 and one doesn't, and the K3 provides no way to link the KAT3 in/out with the selection of ANT 1/2. ----- Julian, G4ILO. K2 #392 K3 #222. http://www.g4ilo.com/ G4ILO's Shack http://www.ham-directory.com/ Ham Directory http://www.g4ilo.com/kcomm.html KComm for Elecraft K2 and K3 -- View this message in context: http://n2.nabble.com/-K3--Power-too-high-in-PSK31---SSB-tp1143050p1143686.html Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net 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
