I have a K3, KPA500, and KAT500. Antennas are a SkyHawk on 20-10m; a
sloping dipole on 40m; an inverted V on 80m fed with 450ohm window line,
a 1:1 current balun/choke, and a short run of RG8 into the radio. This
setup has been working like a charm until... out of nowhere, neither the
40m nor the 80m auto tuning works [everything still tunes ok on 20-10m].
On both 40/80m, the auto tuning continuously cycles, ending in an swr of
99.9:1 and a fault on the tuner. Pressing the TUNE button on the KAT500
has no effect on the outcome.
On 40m with the KAT500 set to bypass, the K3's swr reading is around
1.1:1 and the KAT500 something similar, which is reasonable in that the
40m antenna was cut very carefully to resonance, there are no
environmental variables that would detune it, and visual inspection of
the antenna is okay.
On 80m with the KAT500 set to bypass, the K3 swr reading is 47:1 which
seems unexplainable high, given that the 80m antenna was also cut
carefully to resonance. However, I can't get up the tower at this point
[serious biking accident] to inspect the window line or its connection
to the dipole wires. However, since both 40m and 80m tuning went out
together, I'm not sure how to interpret the different swr readings on
the two bands.
Any guesses or leads as to what this might be and/or what else I might
check? Thanks much.
...robert
--
Robert G Strickland, PhD ABPH - KE2WY
[email protected]
Syracuse, New York, USA
______________________________________________________________
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
