Vernon At risk of pointing out the obvious, with a short(ish) vertical you'll probably need to receive with the pre-amp switched on, and the attenuator switched off, on most bands.
Even with, (quite literally) a screwdriver poked into the antenna socket, you should hear a good number of signals - and probably a lot of hash and qrm from local sources such as computers. Given the paucity of received signals, I don't think transmitting is a particularly good idea ! Regards John G4ZTR -----Original Message----- From: elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net [mailto:elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Vernon Mauery Sent: 08 March 2011 06:06 To: elecraft Subject: [Elecraft] K3 not recieving At the risk of exposing what a n00b I am when it comes to HF, I really need some help. I recently (last month) purchased a K3. First HF radio I have owned. I got my license 2 years ago and have spent most of the time since playing with VHF. I have been trying to teach myself CW and decided that it was time to step into the HF waters. I studied, ogled, and dreamed of my ideal HF transceiver. I finally found the K3 and having looked (at least a cursory glance) at all the others, I was sold. I saved my pennies and purchased. I also got myself a 43' untuned vertical antenna, balun, and radial wires. My setup: K3/100 has 100 feet of low loss 400 coax out to the 43 foot vertical on the hill in my back yard. It has 8 25 foot radials and a 4:1 balun. The K3 has the KATU3, KPA3, KTCXO3-1, KFL3A-400, and default 2.8KHz filters. I assembled it and did followed the calibration instructions as well as I could. I think I got everything, but obviously I missed something. Or maybe I just need an elmer to tell me what to do. I cannot seem to find any signals that make the S meter go above a 3 or 4. I have the RF gain turned up a fair ways (mostly to the top), and I can hear static. As I tune up some of the bands on SSB, I can hear a tone that changes higher in pitch as I tune up in frequency. I have tried listening for CW, but I am hearing nothing as I scan through the bands. I had a 10m horizontal dipole taped to my wall for a while until I found time to run the coax out to the back yard. I had hoped that since it was resonant on the 10m band, maybe it would be able to pick up something, but it was no better (or worse) than my vertical. As far as I can tell, the radio seems to transmit. I can see the power meter moving and the SWR meter moving. The ATU seems to be able to find acceptable settings on most of the bands with the vertical. But I can't hear them. You can't work them if you can't hear them, right? This is a desperate plea for help. Is it the radio or me? Please have pity on the n00b and walk me through my first HF contact. --Vernon N7OH ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5934 (20110307) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5936 (20110308) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
