[Elecraft] Important K3 News

[Don Rasmussen]

What could be better than this?

I've seen other new product offerings where there was
far less attention to initial reports from the field,
much less an immediate/proactive response. 

Keep up the great work guys. 

[Elecraft] Important K3 News
wayne burdick n6kr at elecraft.com 
Sat Nov 17 14:56:20 EST 2007 

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Hi All,

Now that a number of K3s are on the air, we're getting
a lot of 
feedback about the manuals and firmware. We're
incorporating important 
changes as quickly as possible.

Regarding firmware, a number of issues have come up.
Most are minor, 
and all have either already been corrected or will be
soon. We hope to 
have another major firmware release early next week.
The K3 firmware 
loader (K3Utility) is also being updated, and you'll
need to obtain 
this before you do the next firmware upgrade. We'll be
posting 
instructions to the reflector about this once the new
loader and new 
firmware are available.

I wanted to cover a few specific firmware issues. All
have been 
corrected in the upcoming release:

1. CW MESSAGE RECORD: The message buffers were getting
truncated before 
being completely filled (127 rather than 250
characters), and inserted 
word spaces were excessive in length. Message entry is
far easier with 
the new version. (Thanks to Tom, N0SS, for identifying
these issues.)

2. NOISE REDUCTION (NR switch): We've had a couple of
reports of NR 
generating a very strong audio artifact when certain
types of signals 
were tuned in. Since it could occur when you're
wearing headphones, we 
ask that you avoid using NR until we get the new
firmware out.

3. VCO CALIBRATION: A few customers have seen an ERR
VCO message with a 
parameter value between E00004 and E00013 displayed
when doing VCO CAL 
(part of the kit alignment process). This only affects
receive-only 
operation below 160 meters (i.e., with the KBPF3
general-coverage 
band-pass filter option installed). The next firmware
release has an 
improved VCO CAL function that should correct this. If
not, we'll send 
you a replacement synthesizer module.

4. TX TEST: Off-air testing was working only in CW
mode. It now works 
in all modes. It's especially useful in SSB modes,
since it allows you 
to adjust your mic gain and compression without
transmitting.

5. 2.7 kHz CRYSTAL FILTERS: If you have firmware prior
to revision 
1.34, you'll need new firmware in order to properly
set up our 2.7 kHz 
5-pole filters.


Thanks for your suggestions, praise, critique, and
patience as we work 
over these little in the road. Customer feedback was
critical to the 
success of the K2, and I'm sure that will prove the
case with the K3 as 
well.

73,
Wayne
N6KR