John,
That is not normal. You might want to check a couple things.
First, connect an external wattmeter and monitor the actual output - set
the power control at 50 watts and see how much power you actually have
on CW keydown.
If it is much higher (greater than 100 watts), you have a problem with
the KPA100 wattmeter.
Continued operation with that condition present will cause your base K2
PA transistors to be stressed and will fail sometime soon. Even if you
operate with the power knob set below 11 watts, the base K2 PA will
still be stressed because the base PA is putting out the maximum power
that it can develop - often exceeding 18 watts.
Secondly, check the menu setting for CAL TPA - turn power off and wait
at least 1/2 hour to allow things to cool to ambient. Then power on and
check the setting of CAL TPA - adjust to the ambient temperature in degC
if necessary.
If you are doing CW (or data modes) with a high transmit to receive
ratio, such as during a hot and heavy contest, you can set the fan to
LO-HI so it will run at low speed all the time and keep things cooler -
that means the times it switches to high speed will be reduced.
In normal mode, the fan does not run until the CAL TPA temperature (and
the heatsink if CAL TPA is properly calibrated) reaches 40 degC and will
turn off when the temperature drops to 36 degC.
73,
Don W3FPR
On 8/23/2014 7:31 AM, John Farmer wrote:
it's more noticeable if you have well preserved high frequency auditory
acuity :). I use my K2/100 for QRP only, because if I work CW at 20W or
more, the fan runs pretty much continuously on Tx.
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