[Elecraft] K3 KComm PSK D / FSK D Question

[Ian Greenshields]

Hi Julian,

Thanks for the responses:

>Joe has already provided one reason why there is little point in using the
>computer soundcard for receive and the K3 DSP for transmit. As he said, it
>would be much more difficult to ensure that TX and RX are both on precisely
>the same frequency as if the soundcard was doing both, and they do need to
>be spot on or the other guy will miss the start of your over while his
>software locks on to it.

Agreed, this is important. The way I've tried to ensure the RX & TX
frequency is the same is to select the soundcard option in KComm, & manually
switch the K3 back to PSK D. If set up correctly I can then see the same
text decoded via KComm's soundcard DLL on screen & the K3's own text
decoder. I've successfully made contacts this way, so am assuming the TX/RX
frequencies are the same (if not, it's a K3 problem, not a KComm one!). Of
course I loose the KComm's TX window & macro capability doing this so I have
to TX via the K3 macros or the paddle which is awfully clunky.

>My experience has shown that the computer sound card PSK31 Core DLL does a
>better job of decoding data when signals are weak than the K3 DSP does. In
>other words, if you have a computer sound card available it is pointless to
>use it for just a waterfall and not let it do the decoding as well. If this
>was not the case then what you are suggesting might be worth implementing.

Yes, I've also noticed this. The K3 RTTY decoder is very good; the K3 PSK31
decoder falls short of soundcard decoders. The opposite seems to be true on
the TX side where the K3 encoders seem better (lower IMD) than the soundcard
variants. This was the main reason that prompted my question - I was trying
to get the best of both worlds.

>You should be able to resolve the problem of two programs fighting over the
>serial port by using the free Virtual Serial Port Emulator software.

I'll give this a try. Thanks.

I think what I'm really looking for is to use the K3's digital D modes and
to have the K3's own decoded text available within the KComm window, with
the option of a soundcard plug-in to reinforce it. Not as easy as I had
hoped!

Thanks anyway & 73,
Ian G4FSU