[Elecraft] Ethernet Interface for K3 (Was: KUSB for K3)

[Brian Lloyd]

Personally, I would dearly love to see Elecraft offer an Ethernet/IP  
interface for the K3. That would be sufficiently fast that we could  
not only send commands and get status, but we can also send/receive  
audio or other modulations as well. I would dearly love to see  
various digital modulation/demodulation modes built into the DSP;  
e.g. BPSK, QPSK, QAM, MSK, FSK, OFDM, baseband audio, etc. Let me  
send a UDP packet filled with bits to the K3 and have the DSP in the  
K3 modulate and transmit. Likewise I would like the received bits  
demodulated and dumped into a UDP packet to be sent wherever I want  
those bits. This would turn the K3 into a full-on SDR (within the  
bandwidth limits of the low-IF which is determined by the sampling  
rate of the A:D/D:A).

This approach means I can have multiple computers interacting with  
the K3.  Maybe I want the main receiver data going to one computer,  
the second receiver data going to a second computer, the transmit  
data coming from a third computer, and a fourth computer controlling  
it all. Or I could have one computer controlling multiple K3's. It  
also means that the data on the wire is the standard which makes it  
easy for people to write software for different platforms, e.g.  
Windows, Mac, Linux, Java, etc.

And it is time to start thinking of everything as data. Even audio is  
data since it is just bits inside the DSP.

73 de Brian, WB6RQN
Brian Lloyd - brian HYPHEN wb6rqn AT lloyd DOT com