My recently completed K2, #7235, worked FB for two weeks. One evening, while listening around the bands, I stepped over to my balanced feed tuner to change taps. What I didn't realize was that a healthy static charge had built up on my vertical linear-loaded dipole. When I reached for a tap I drew a healthy spark. That was nearly as unsettling as the snap that erupted from my K2 as one of the PA transistors let go.
With excellent support from Elecraft and the advice of others on this forum, I was able to repair the damage and get my K2 back in order. In the process, I did hear from a number of people on the forum that it was not uncommon for K2's to be damaged by static discharge. Each leg of my balanced feed now sports a 15 Megohm 1 watt carbon resistor anchored to a grounded braid strap. I haven't noticed any change in performance and there is absolutely no evidence of a static build-up. For whatever it's worth. . . George N9AUP -- View this message in context: http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/My-K2-adventure-with-antenna-static-discharge-tp7401915p7401915.html Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
