Freaky!

Sunday afternoon I received an alert over my phone that Middlesex County was under a severe thunderstorm watch until 11:00 PM. Being cautious, I went downstairs to detach the coax cable running to the KX3. But before I did that,  I wanted to see how the bands were. So I turned on the KX3.

Nothing. It was dead.

My immediate reaction was to panic, beads of sweat started popping out on my forehead, but I fought off the urge. I broke out the VOM and took a reading at the Astron's terminals. 13.5 Volts, we're good there.

Take a reading at the power connector to the KX3. Nothing. Next step was to turn off the Astron, switch the meter to Ohms and check for continuity from the Astron to the KX3's  power plug. Direct short from outer connection on the power plug to the negative terminal of the Astron.. Same for positive side of things. What ???!!!???  Holy electrons, Batman, this doesn't make sense!

Next step was to run upstairs and break out the PowerWerx battery and the power cord that I use with it. Hooked that up to the KX3 and all is well.

Deep breath and huge sigh of relief!

Then I took that power cord, attached the two alligator clips to the Astron's terminals, plugged that plug into the KX3, turned them both on and again, all is well.

So the culprit is the power cord. How does that go bad just sitting there doing nothing? The only thing that I can think of is that our cat must have been climbing around down there behind my shack table and must have broken it. I'm still.puzzled as how the cable tested OK with the Ohms setting on the meter. Maybe the way I had it twisted made a temporary good connection. Either way, I will fabricate a new power cord on Monday.

72 de Larry W2LJ 

QRP - When you care to send the very least!