Fixing the Broken K2/100

Well, it's been slow going for my ailing K2. I put the tested U5 - 78L05 back in the board and cut pin 7 of U6. The KPA100 once again responded to the main K2.

I replaced U6 with a machine pin socket, and after waiting another week, I finally got the part from Elecraft. 

With U6 replaced, I went through the KPA100 alignment steps. First problem was the SWR Bridge Null Adjustment. While I could get a clear null, the display never showed anything less than 1.1 SWR on 40m. 

Next to the Power Calibration. This went fine as well, but when I checked the SWR on all the bands, I received a 1.8 SWR on 80m, and 2.6 on 160m. The highest bands gave a 1.0 indication, but most of the others were 1.1, just like 40m.

I double-checked my dummy load with my external watt meter. It appears they are 1.0 on all bands.

A bit after this, I did some full-power tests:

* 40m - K2 indicates about 70 watts (7 bars), but the external watt meter shows 100 watts
* 80/160m - K2 indicates about 50 watts (5 bars), and sometimes I get a Hi Cur warning. The external watt meter shows 100 watts, or perhaps a little more.

Something is obviously wrong with the power measurement circuits here.

Elecraft suggests that the D16 and D17 diodes are "half bad" -- that is they have been damaged enough to change their characteristics, but not enough to fail open or shorted. Next step is to replace them.

I just got the parts from Mouser this weekend. We'll try more repair work this week. It would be very nice to get the K2/100 up and running again. I'm guessing there might have been some damage from an electro-static discharge of some kind. 

HK0NA

Delighted to find confirmations on LotW from HK0NA on Friday. Worked them back in late January and February on 160-10m, all three modes - CW, Phone, RTTY.

It's a great feeling to go from not having a country confirmed at all, to having them confirmed on nine bands and three modes. Kudos to the DXpedition team for uploading to LotW so soon after the event.

Broken K2/100

OK. At least I know what's wrong. It appears that one of the chips on the KPA100 fed by the 78L05 has failed and is drawing so much current that the regulator only puts out about 1 volt.

It isn't U1 -- the PIC chip that runs the KPA100. That one is at least socketed and was easy to remove and test with it out of the circuit. And it isn't U3 -- the 78L05 regulator. I pulled it off the board and tested it, it works OK.

It is either U4 -- the MAX1406C chip, or U6 -- the EL5146. My bet is on the EL5146. Now to order parts....

NAQP RTTY from Floyd County

Had a very limited time to operate the NAQP RTTY, due to other commitments in the evening.

During the IARU, my K2/100 had been acting up with an INFO 080 problem. I attempted to diagnose the issue further on Saturday morning, but no dice. I remove several boards, replacing them with Rework Eliminators, but the rig just seemed to get sicker. It refused to recognize the KPA100 at all, and even with it disconnected, the radio didn't sound right, and gave "not instd" on several options that were still installed. My K2/100 is a very sick radio right now.

So, I had to fall back on the venerable Kenwood TS-430S. I bought this rig new in the fall of 1985, and it has always given me reliable service. It was never designed for RTTY or computer control. (That being the role of it's successor, the TS-440S) But, an old rig is better than no rig, despite having to manually change bands in the logging software.

It was great to hear signals on 10m, and 15m open as well. Had a lot of fun S & Ping between stations. I tried several times to CQ on 20 and 15m, but only one station answered me. A few people I tried to answer CQed in my face. As a result, I'm contemplating moving the R7000 further up the hill, or perhaps hanging up some real antennas.

It seemed like conditions were generally good, just not a tremendous amount of activity. Still, plenty of fun. CU in the next NAQP.


Class: Single Op LP
QTH: GA
Operating Time (hrs): 3.2

Summary:
Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  80:   0      0
  40:   1      1
  20:  33     21
  15:  21     19
  10:  12      7
-------------------
Total:  77     48  Total Score = 3,696

Club: South East Contest Club

Comments:

Antennas:
R7000 at 3m high (10-40m)
80/40m trap dipole at 3-4m high (80m, 40m)

Equipment:
Venerable Kenwood TS-430S w/ AT-250 running 75-80 watts

IARU 2012

I had set up the K2/100 the night before and everything appeared to be working fine. Got into the shack just after 1200z, and when I went to change the antenna connection, it got a "not instd"response. It was pretty evident that the K2/100 is not talking to the KAT100. Tried switching the cable, turning the system on and off many times, still the same thing.

Soon I'm getting an INFO 080 error, which every K2 owner knows means that the main microcontroller can't talk to the other microcontrollers in the rig.

30 minutes into this, I still haven't worked a contact. It's clear that I have no clue what is wrong with the K2, so I go with plan B -- the venerable TS-430S. I bought this rig in the fall of 1985, just before Kenwood came out with the TS-440S. It's served me quite well. No computer control, though, so every band change is a manual event.

Worked about 5 hours, off and on. Conditions were OK. A bit sparse on 10m. 15m sounded good. I'm thinking I need a better antenna than the R7000. There were a couple of HQ stations who couldn't really hear me. Definitely more of a struggle to make contacts on phone than CW.

Operating Time (hrs): 5

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Zones  HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
  160:    0      0      0       0
   80:    0      0      0       0
   40:    0      0      0       0
   20:   29      5      6       9
   15:   48     17     11      11
   10:    6      1      2       1
-------------------------------------
Total:   83     23     19      21  Total Score = 10,240

Club: South East Contest Club

Comments:

Antennas:
R7000 at 3m high (10-40m)

Equipment:
Venerable TS-430S w/ AT-250 running 100 watts

Field Day 2012

Somehow, I hurt my back. Well, I say somehow, but I know how. I over-did it at karate. It's hard when a 51-year-old man tries to keep up with the teenagers. Too much jumping and kicking, and I ended up in so much pain the Thursday before Field Day that I could barely stand. 


Fortunately, I managed to get it under control by Field Day and work some stations from the Micro-shack. I started by putting the 80/40m dipole back up. A rope had frayed in two where it went over a branch. An hour's worth of work and that end was once again up in the trees. I spent some time raising the other end and managed to get it a couple of meters higher. 


I used the Elecraft K2/100. The K2 is really designed for field day. It worked out really well. I borrowed a 12v deep-cycle battery from my camping trailer to operate class 1E. I did end up getting a Low Batt indication after about 3.5 hours, but I reduced power to 50 watts and continued one.

Conditions weren't great. I found nothing on 10m, very little activity on 15, which means everything was crammed onto 20 and 40m. At one point, I could not find a clear frequency on 40m CW -- there were signals every 200-300 Hz. It almost sounded like 160m during the ARRL 160m contest.

Managed to do a bit of running, but this one was mostly S & P. I must say that field day operating technique is significantly below the standard of most contests. There were several occasions where I was calling CQ, someone called, I answered, and they disappeared. It even happened a couple of times when someone else called CQ. I guess people got key (not mic) fright.

Took one break to take my wife out to dinner. About 0300z, my back had had enough of sitting and I had to pull the plug. Maybe next time, I'll be able to stay up a bit later and work more on 80m.

Two memorable contacts. Worked W4DOC -- the Atlanta Radio Club, with whom I have done innumerable field days. Also worked W8SP -- a club which my brother Ben, NJ8J, used to join for field day in WV. I had never worked W8SP before.



Call: AA4LR
Operator(s): AA4LR
Station: AA4LR

Class: 1E LP
QTH: GA
Operating Time (hrs): 5.5

Summary:
Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:                 
 80:    3            
 40:  119      5     
 20:   54     18     
 15:   10      3     
 10:                                  
----------------------------
Total:  186     26      0  Total Score = 896

Club: South East Contest Club

Scratching the (Microsoft) Surface

Microsoft announced this week a new line of tablet computers running Windows. The announcement event had more than it's share of balky demos and unresponsive machines. The most curious thing, however, was the most distinctive feature of the Surface devices -- the embedded keyboard/cover. Although Microsoft had "hands-on" event, none of those present were actually permitted to try the keyboard. Add to this the fact that no pricing was announced and it just gives the entire event a forced feel -- like the products just weren't quite ready to announce.

John Gruber has perhaps the best analysis of this: "I presume Microsoft timed this event to jump ahead of anything Google might be announcing at their I/O conference next week — and the consensus seems to be that Google is going to announce much the same idea: their own Google-branded, Google-designed tablet that will put them in direct competition not just with Apple but with their own OS licensees."

Contrast this with Apple's announcement of the iPad. There were certainly plenty of rumours that Apple had been developing a tablet device. They had been circulating for years. In fact, the Apple rumour mill had gotten very tired of this story by the time of the announcement in January 2010. But Apple's announcement event was smooth and polished, full pricing information was given and pre-orders were taken within 60 days.

There's no doubt that the iPad has been a complete breakthrough product. And despite a host of challengers introduced in the last two years, none have really made an impact. Currently, there is no "tablet" market. Not yet. There's only an iPad market. 

I welcome Surface, just as I've welcomed the other iPad competitors. Competition is a good thing. When Windows Phone Series 7 was introduced during PDC '10, I thought it was a good thing. Frankly, I'm disappointed that it hasn't done better in the market. It's natural for any market to have three or four strong competitors, all pushing each other to produce better and better products and more attractive prices.

On this note, the personal computer market was a complete anomaly for over two decades. At first, it was dominated by the IBM PC. However, due to bad management, IBM had leaked enough technical details to allow their product to be copied, so the market became dominated with PC "clones." IBM tried to remedy this situation by introducing the Micro-channel Architecture, which required vendors to license certain technology in order to produce clones. (I fondly remember walking around COMDEX in the late 80's, finding some cool ISA hardware board, and then asking them if they had an MCA version available) But the market had already been wrested from IBM's hands, and placed in those of Microsoft, who's MS-DOS ran on all those clones.

Microsoft leveraged that OS monopoly into another, with Windows. Soon Microsoft dictated the hardware requirements to the clone makers, and stifled any upstart OS that threatened to emerge. Sure, there were competitors, such as Apple, who made arguably better computers, but they held an insignificant portion of the market. But it didn't last.

The problem with monopolies like this is they tend to stifle innovation. The best example is Microsoft itself -- with Internet Explorer. Microsoft recognized in late 1994 that the internet was a threat to their OS monopoly. They bought the Spyglass browser and turned it into Internet Explorer 1 in August 1995. There ensued a frenzy of innovation effort which brought us to IE 6 within six years. And then -- nothing for over five years. By 2001, Microsoft had achieved complete market dominance with an 85-90% market share in the browser space. Only when competition appeared again in the form of Mozilla and WebKit-based browsers did they again release new version of Internet Explorer. 

And, today, the browser market space is dominated by four strong competitors, each with 20-25% market share. That's a normal market.

There's too many writers in the computer press who are used to the anomaly -- with one competitor completely dominating the market. After all, it makes their job eaiser. All they have to do is follow the market dominator.

You'd think the press would embrace Apple's dominance in the tablet space. But no, it can't possibly be Apple. Apple was too long the beleaguered also-ran. By 1997, the press had given them up for dead. And there was certainly a lot of evidence for that. 

Apple proved it could successfully dominate the market with the iPod, another product many competitors tried unsuccessfully to compete with. Yet the press still looks to Microsoft.

After Apple announced the iPhone, Palm's Ed Colligan said, "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in." Of course, the funny thing is -- they did. And not just once with iPhone, but a second time with Android. There's always room, even in a crowded market, for innovative products.

So, while I welcome the Surface to the market, I'm not really considering buying one. But I welcome the innovation it brings -- because this benefits all consumers. If nothing else, I can't wait for the next iPad...