Jim - I recently sent my K3 to the 'Mother Ship' for some upgrades while my wife and I took a 3 week road trip. I hooked up the returned rig over the weekend. Much to my chagrin, I was extremely high SWR. I verified that I had the RF path correct from the K3 through assorted other devices and to the antenna. While doing so I noticed one coax connector that was about 1/4 to 1/2 turn loose. I tightened it, and all was fine... for about 30 seconds.
Remembering what a wise man once said I suspected a bad piece of coax. I checked the same connection again... it was loose... as I tightened it, all of a sudden it became loose again. This was a 1 foot jumper, from a company that advertises heavily. I had been using it for several years from the output of my KPA500 to the sensor for my LP-100A. The threads did not appear to be stripped, although it felt like it. I looked like the threads were cur very shallow. I replaced it with a jumper I made many years ago, using Amphenol connectors, and all is now working as it should. Well... not quite all... I have made some nice CW QSOs, but decided to check SSB operation. It is not working on that mode (which I almost never use), but I will tackle it to see what is not set correctly. Dave - K9FN On Mon, Aug 7, 2017 at 5:28 PM, Jim Brown <j...@audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote: > On 8/6/2017 5:25 PM, David F. Reed wrote: > >> It was a connection to my coax switch; take it out of line, it goes away. >> re-connected, it comes back. Cleaned the connections and reconnected, it >> is gone. >> > > Many years ago, a very smart guy said something it the effect that with > any problems with TX or RX, ALWAYS check for bad coax FIRST. From lots of > experience, I've learned the value of that. First things to check are the > SHIELD connections, any junk connectors and adapters (if it doesn't say > Amphenol, it's probably junk). > > If you "cleaned the connections" and fixed it, there's a good chance that > the problem is still there, lurking as an intermittent shield connection > that will return. Or maybe the switch is poor. > > 73, Jim K9YC > > ______________________________________________________________ > 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 > Message delivered to dpbu...@gmail.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 Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
