This is a new (but not my first k3). It has the KPA3, KAT3, KRX3, KXV3A and P3. I have 2 antennas connected to the KAT3. Ant1 is a beam, Ant2 is an 88’ long dipole fed with ladder line to an Elecraft 4:1 balun then with coax to the rig. The KAT3 normally tunes it 1:1 on 80/40/30/20, which are the only bands I use it on.
Today on the 30m band I heard a dx station working a pileup up. I pushed A>B,Split and Sub. When I keyed the K3 to call the DX, I got the HIGH SWR message. Now when I tap ATU TUNE, the SWR maxes out, power out drops, the relays go crazy, it tunes to 2:1, power goes to whatever I have it set for and tuning stops. It only does this on 30m. It tunes to 1:1 on the other bands. If I switch to ANT1 on 30m it tunes to 1:1.3. Same with ANT1, SPLIT and SUB selected. My K2 with KAT100 tunes the same antenna to 1:1 on 30m. I’ve had this antenna up for several years and it works as well as you would expect, it’s only about 35 feet in the air. Yesterday it did this same thing, but after trying to locate the source of the problem for awhile, I powered down and disconnected everything from the back of the K3. Then moved the K3 to a different location because I wanted to bypass the antenna switch and hook directly to the coax coming from the balun. With just the antenna and power supply connected I tried the antenna on 30m and continued getting 2:1 SWR. But, this is strange, I placed the K3 back to its normal location, reconnected everything and when I tuned the dipole on 30m it went to 1:1. I had a qso with it on 30m last night and the swr was fine. Today it was fine until I went A>B, SPLIT and SUB to call the DX. Then I keyed and got the HIGH SWR again. That’s where I am now. It shows full power out even though SWR is at 2:1. I can’t duplicate the problem on any of the other bands. The K3 is only a few weeks old. I can’t remember if I was ever able to do an ANT TUNE after doing SPLIT/SUB on 30m, probably not. I have the Auxilary antenna connected to the BNC. KRX3 in Config is set to Ant=Atu. I’ve tried everything I can think of. Why did it go HIGH SWR the first time I used the SUB rcvr? I did the memory clear for the KAT3 but it made no difference. I hope someone can help me. Thanks, ______________________________________________________________ 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
