having so much fun and frustration working the moon!

73, Benni TF3CY

I had the moon low but getting close to my neighbors – so not wanting to send around 15-30KW EIRP into their houses I had to quit.

N7NW, AD7TJ and W7MEM where all finished within 30 minutes – reports where about -22 [...]]]> I made 3 2m EME QSO’s using a borrowed Kenwood TS-2000

I had the moon low but getting close to my neighbors – so not wanting to send around 15-30KW EIRP into their houses I had to quit.

N7NW, AD7TJ and W7MEM where all finished within 30 minutes – reports where about -22 to -26db.

so I will be QRV next few days during the best-cond with my borrowed TS2000 – but I really hope I can get my beloved K3 working soon.

I bought my dream transceiver and have been generally pleased with the performance of the K3. It’s amazing how easy it is to interface to it and it’s a pure experimenters dream. Now I’m playing with LP-PAN adapter.

I had a DEMI 60W 2m transverter on [...]]]> Okay – now to elaborate on this problem.

I bought my dream transceiver and have been generally pleased with the performance of the K3. It’s amazing how easy it is to interface to it and it’s a pure experimenters dream. Now I’m playing with LP-PAN adapter.

I had a DEMI 60W 2m transverter on order but decided to buy the K144XV-K module for the K3 as my amplifier only needs about 10W for a 500W output.

I was very eager to get on the air – but to my great dissapointment the K3 + K144XV has problems.

1. frequency stability after 50s transmit cycle. I see signals in RX drift up to 60hz after TX sequence. Littlebit less if I lower the drive.
2. Birdies – all around.

In this picture, you can see HA6NQ’s drace on 0Hz DF – and some birdies. After TX you can see everything moving.
I had reports from stations monitoring that my signal was also drifting.

When I ordered the K3+K144XV I saw no option of the RFLK board. So it must have just gotten available shortly after I made the order, or perhaps I just did not notice it. My K3 has the TCXO option installed.

As it appears, the K144XV is unusable on JT65B. I have not yet gotten the RFLK board delivered so the problem will hopefully go away when I lock the K144XV to the master XO.

Now in my oppinion, Elecraft should have a BIG warning sign when ordering the K144XV that it is unusable on JT65 – as they must have tested this. I got an answer from Elecraft saying that K144XV with the RFLK has been field tested and is working well. I’m not very happy to have spent $390 on a transverter where I could have spent little more and gotten a 60W transverter from DEMI (not that I know how that is performing). So Elecraft is selling a bad product there and then letting you spend more to fix it. The RFLK should just be a free upgrade from them!

Birdies:
I notices I had alot of birdies on 2m. I have my LCD monitors elevated on a small standoff table on top of my desk. When I pulled the K3 underneath the standoff I noticed that the birdies disappeared. Same thing if I turn off the LCD. This might point to an unclean power supply etc of the LCD – but the TS-2000 did not show this weakness. I started looking at the K3 – it has a open “grill” for the PA air intake. There we have the unprotected BNC connector for the antenna as well the HF. Not sure if this is the source – but it’s quite possible. I put a 50×50 aluminium plate on top of the table and grounded- problem went away. So the K3 is not very well shielded I think. These are just observations – no real measurements.

Now I hope hope hope the $89 RFLK board will fix this.

and darn, I was going to buy a IC-748PRO – but as it was rumored to be unstable on 2m in I decided to get the super stable K3

not thrashing K3 – know it’s a great radio – but I put a question mark over the K144XV and that you have to pay more to get it usable.

73, Benni TF3CY

I have some strange problem with my setup, not sure if it’s the K3+K144XV or the soundcard or computer…

5 watts in, 250w out quite good gain I must say – 15dB

Due to a faulty Bird element – I could not go all the way, also missing a [...]]]> After now 2-3 months of constant pondering, ebay browsing, googling, pestering people with questions I have something to show – amplifier is near completion !

5 watts in, 250w out quite good gain I must say – 15dB

Due to a faulty Bird element – I could not go all the way, also missing a bigger fuse.  so I will hopefully be able to borrow a bigger element to fully test the amplifier – now called Gandalf the gray!

here is a link to the project: http://www.tf3cy.is/2m-linear

Now I just have the issue that the MCU control board is rebooting when in XMIT – and I have some programming to do so I will get accurate voltage / current readings. Hope closing the RF unit will solve the reboot issue – perhaps I have to go to ebay and buy some old analog front panel meters ;/

- Benni TF3CY

I put up a 2m5WL yagi, have to have it vertical polarized. I have a view from ca 100° east to 250° – Got az/el  control.

Having issues getting the pre-amp inline and the power amp to work togeather. coax is [...]]]> I decided to jump the gun as the weather is so good now…

I put up a 2m5WL yagi, have to have it vertical polarized. I have a view from ca 100° east to 250° – Got az/el  control.

Having issues getting the pre-amp inline and the power amp to work togeather. coax is from “cable experts”.

after having very strange stalling issues with WordPress,  when loading the page, it would just wait 10-15s before anything would be transferred out of the server. Tried disabling all addons, etc.. In the end, I just downloaded newest version of WP, theme and some plugins.. seems [...]]]> This is a new version of the site…

after having very strange stalling issues with WordPress,  when loading the page, it would just wait 10-15s before anything would be transferred out of the server. Tried disabling all addons, etc.. In the end, I just downloaded newest version of WP, theme and some plugins.. seems to work now. Manually transferred over – so I would not carry over some shit from the previous install…