My Elecraft KX3 has a ping??

This afternoon I was planning on setting up the Alexloop into the living room and try some operating with the KX3. I was wanting to see how the loop worked in the living room. I was going to bring it on the deck but there was the threat of rain. Out of the blue when I was on 15m  in CW mode whenever I keyed a letter and then released the key I would hear a very loud "ping" in the headphones. This only happened on 17m, 10m and 15m. I tried changing the headphones, using a dummy load and reducing the power to 0 but there was always a ping noise heard in my ear? I am not sure if I inadvertently changed a menu option that is causing this. This brought the living room KX3 operations to an abrupt end and off to the internet to see what was going on with the rig. I have posted the question on the Elecraft reflector as well as here on the blog.
Problem has just been solved seems if I have the rig on dual RX and VFO A and B are very close to each other I am picking up "me" on VFO B. Which makes sense and when in dual mod the head phones are split with VFO A in one ear and VFO B in the other. This would explain why the ping was only heard in one ear!
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

4 Responses to “My Elecraft KX3 has a ping??”

  • Ernest Gregoire, AA1IK:

    Mine does the same kind of thing if I have the monitor level too high on the xmt tone. Its a feed back that is very noticeable when I use an external speaker. I have not checked into a way to cut down the xmt CW tone in the earphones other than the Mon, CW tone knob. I think there is a way to shut that off completely but I really like hearing my own CW tone in my earphones as I transmit.

    The feedback happens with SSB too, if my levels are too high for the speaker. I’d look in the audio monitor options to see if that helps.

    de AA1IK

    Ernest Gregoire

    73

  • Mike VE3WDM:

    Good afternoon Ernest, I only noticed the problem at this end with the headphones. When I was listening to the KX3 speaker I did not have the problem. But I think that due to the fact with the headphones you have VFO A an B on separate ears as with the KX3 speaker that does not happen. With my K3 which has the extra receiver I have never had this problem no matter how close the 2 VFO’s are in frequency. Well maybe it’s a firmware issue that is going to have to be looked after.
    Thanks for commenting Ernest.
    Mike

  • W0ea:

    I alerted Wayne and Lyle of this very early on and it has not yet been fixed. A post to the yahoo group may be in order to see I fthey are planning any more work on it.

  • Mike VE3WDM:

    Good evening W0EA, I will email them this week about it and see if they can get a move on things. This is the first it has happen to me but what is the use of having VFO A and B within 15khz of each other and this type of problem happening when you are very close between the two VFO’s.
    Thanks for taking the time to comment and stopping by the blog.
    Mike

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