This evening I had a guest ham in the shack who was curious about my K2 and asked if we could hook it up. So we did. I pointed out which 12v power strip, power cord, and antenna to use. While I was getting the proper computer interface cables hooded up, my guest connected the radio to the power and switched it on. I heard a loud snap and immediately looked in the direction of the K2 operating position. My guest had a strange look on his face and I asked what happened. There was a spark from the outside of the antenna connector on the back of the K2 to the center connector of the coax.
That can't happen, right? Wrong. After shutting down the power supply and inspecting things, I discovered my guest had wired the power backwards. Fortunately the reverse polarity circuitry protected the radio and internal battery. The radio was operating from the battery, that's why it came on. I still can't understand where the spark came from. However, I now have virtually NO receive on 40m, that's where the radio was when the spark occurred. I have transmit and receive on all other bands and transmit on 40m, just no receive on 40m. That spark killed something dealing with 40m receive. It is so bad I can't even hear the local oscillator around 7000 KHz with the pre-amp on. There is no CW or SSB receive. Mark, KJ7BS Glendale, AZ Editor, The SKCC Centurion Elecraft K2 S/N 0539 Fists # 2972 CC 1806 SKCC # 2240 C56 T20 MQFD # 128 QRP-ARCI # 12647 AZ ScQRPions COGRC Emergency Communications _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
