Hi all, My K3 appears to be working just fine once the power amp shut down problem was fixed. For months after I had assembled the K3, I would occasionally to frequently experience power amp shut down failures. The power amp shut down failures would occur while transmitting. The power amp shut down would occur sometime after I had been transmitting for a while and sometimes when I has been transmitting only for a very short time. This problem appeared to occur mostly on the 10m band.
The problem appears to have been an intermittent BNC connector on the coax cable that I was using. This cable worked fine on other radios but not the K3. When I changed the cable to the K3, the power amp shut down problem went away. I have been trouble free for about 6 weeks now. Lessons learned: (a) use good cables with good connectors, (b) be aware that the K3 has hair trigger protection logic that shuts down the PA, (c.) the K3 needs to have messages displayed on the front panel when it decides to shut down the power amp giving a cause for that action, (d) the K3 documentation needs to enumerate the actions the firmware may take to change the state of the radio, in particular when the PA power is shut down. Had I been able to read about the protection logic built into the firmware to protect the power amplifier, I would have saved months of frustration trying to figure out what was going on. It would be greatly appreciated by me and surely many others if the user manual would discuss the protection logic in the firmware and where and when power down actions will be taken. Had the firmware reported protective action taken to shut down the power amp, this too would have hastened my taking corrective action. It would be so easy for the firmware to display, say on the VFOB display, that high SWR caused the power amp to be shut down. Don Nelson, N0YE -- View this message in context: http://n2.nabble.com/K3-Power-Amp-Shut-Down-Problem-tp2959862p2959862.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
