So about 20 minutes prior to starting another successful Field Day with my trusty K3 I powered it up for the first time after connecting everything had just started some tests when my buddy starting yelling that I was letting some of the magic smoke out of the radio. Sure enough, there was smoke coming out of the back of the radio. I dived over and pulled the power. To make a long story short, I was running an S9 31' vertical antenna base tuned with an SG-231 autotuner, with the auto tuner powered over the coax using DC blocks. The exact same config as I ran with last year with wonderful results. Unfortunately this year in my excitement I carelessly installed the DC block at the radio end BACKWARDS, sending the 13.8v from my 30 switched supply right into the antenna jack. After the incident I powered back up with my finger on the off switch to try to assess the level of damage. The radio puts out some power, but the SWR is infinite even into a dummy load. I am not sure of the status of the receiver input chain as I didn't want to put it back onto a real antenna.
So I am just wondering before I open it up what kind of damage I might find and what kind of options I might have for repair. Has anyone heard of this sort of a bonehead mistake? Any ideas on what I might have fried? Given this is a mechanical assembly only kit is there any chance any of the parts are going to be user serviceable? I love the radio and I'm hoping it is at least salvageable. Thanks for any insights, Mike/KE0MF ______________________________________________________________ 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 Message delivered to [email protected]
