[Elecraft] K3 - N1MM Macro for "Cross-Band Split"

[David Gilbert]

Some of you may remember the reflector discussion from last March 
regarding cross-band split.  In a nutshell, the K3 doesn't allow you to 
transmit split with VFO A on one band and VFO B on another, even if you 
have the subreceiver installed and have set CONFIG: VFO IND to YES.  
This would be a nice capability for running on one band while doing S&P 
on another band via the dual VFO window capability in N1MM.  In theory, 
N1MM can automatically put the K3 into split mode when you send 
something from the VFO B window, but the K3 only allows that to work if 
the VFOs are on the same band.  You can, of course, manually activate 
the A/B button, but that requires moving your hand to the K3 to push the 
button and it causes N1MM to lose track of which VFO was being used to 
make the contact.

I checked with Wayne about an update on the capability for cross-band 
split and he pointed out that it takes a lot of relay switching (among 
other things) to do it, and that it wasn't likely to be implemented very 
soon.  I can completely understand that, so I decided to try using N1MM 
macros to execute the new K3 macros to accomplish more or less the same 
thing.  Here's what I got.

{CATA2ASC SWT11;} ~~~~ action {END} {CATA2ASC SWT11;}

where:

"{" and "}" are the N1MM command procedure brackets

"CATA2" designates VFO B

"ASC" designates an ASCII command syntax

"SWT11;" is the K3 macro for the A/B button

"~~~~" are four tildas in a row for a delay to let the K3 bandswitch 
relays settle (less than four did not seem to give reliable results)

"action"    is the string you want N1MM to send or the action you want 
N1MM to perform (send your callsign, the other station's callsign, your 
report, etc)

"{END}" tells N1MM that "action" is finished and that whatever follows 
is another command procedure


CATA2ASC is only executable if the window for VFO B in N1MM is active.  
If instead the VFO A window in N1MM is active, N1MM will ignore the 
command to flip VFOs and it will only execute "action".  In other words, 
let's say that I have entered N6KR in the callsign entry field of Window 
A while running on VFO A, and I have entered WA6HHQ in the callsign 
entry field of Window B after finding him via S&P on VFO B.  If Window A 
is active, the following N1MM macro will transmit "N6KR" from VFO A, 
albeit with the delay caused by the four tildas:

{CATA2ASC SWT11;} ~~~~ ! {END} {CATA2ASC SWT11;}

On the other hand, if I make Window B active (such as by clicking on 
Window B, hitting the "\" key, or by clicking on the Window B bandmap, 
etc), that same N1MM macro will  switch the K3 VFOs, wait for the relays 
to settle, transmit "WA6HHQ" on what had been VFO B's frequency, and 
then switch the VFO's back the way they were.

Since this macro actually performs an A/B exchange rather than a true 
split, I think that the correct LPF always gets activated so that there 
shouldn't be the usual concern about which bands can work together.  
Somebody please correct me if that is not the case.

I'm not sure I'd want to yank the K3 back and forth a lot like this in 
general (Wayne was definitely right about the relays), but for doing S&P 
on one band while running on another I think it would be practical ... 
and probably more versatile than a true K3 cross-band split feature.

73,
Dave   AB7E












{CATA1ASC SWT11;} {CATA2ASC SWT11;} ~~~~ AB7E {END} {CATA1ASC SWT11;} 
{CATA2ASC SWT11;}