[Elecraft] Serial to Ethernet - TCP/IP connections

[Ken Nicely]

Steve,

I have tried several of these interfaces.  All that I have tried still only
allow one connection to the K3.  Why is this?  Because the K3 has no concept
of knowing what program it is talking to.  It just receives a command via
the serial interface and replies to it via the serial interface.  If the K3
supported networking, then it would know that it is talking to HRD on port
3000 and the P3 on port 3001 and PowerSDR on port 3002.  When request
is received from any of these programs it would reply to only that program
in some situations and to all the programs in others.  This is simply not
possible so long as the K3 supports only a serial interface.

I am not suggesting that they give up the serial interface all together.
 There will be those that cannot understand networking and want to stick to
the older serial technology.  That works for them and that is fine with me.
We just need the option for those of us that want true performance and a
clean interface to that understands who it is talking to.

Ken Nicely KE3C

On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 11:22 AM, Steve Jackson <inventor61 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Ken
>
> A variety of inexpensive (3rd party) devices are on the market to do
> exactly as you propose.
>
> One source is NetBurner:
>
> http://www.netburner.com/products.html
>
> Digi also sells top grade products.
>
> (I am only a customer of these firms.)
>
> My personal experience trying to lobby multiple well-known and popular
> 'premium' ham application developers, whose products I have purchased, to
> support even basic existing Elecraft rig functionality, via well-documented
> serial port command syntax, was ... discouraging.
>
> I see the world from their point of view as well.  Hams have a wide variety
> of skill levels these days.  You or I might be able to adopt IP addressable
> rig functionality with ease but others might find it most challenging.  The
> "help line" costs of a technology shift like this might be higher than the
> product's revenues could support.
>
> I might suggest (as I have here in the past) that instead Elecraft offer an
> I/O module upgrade that uses Bluetooth.  This interface could support
> well-established wireless audio and serial port profiles.  There'd be no new
> wires - hooray! - hence, no RFI or grounding issues, and modern computer
> operating systems already support these interfaces, making them readily
> accessible to programmers.
>
> What a terrific treat it would be for me to use a wireless digital-audio
> headset like this one:
>
> http://www.blueparrott.com/products/blueparrottb250XT.html
>
> while that same wireless interface supported a Bluetooth mouse for my P3
> and a Bluetooth serial port for my computer.  As a plus, the K3 cabinet
> would not need to have another connector on it, so, I could even keep my
> existing RS-232 port!
>
> 73 Steve KZ1X/4
> K1, K2, K3, etc.
> Celebrating my 11th year of daily Elecraft reflector lurking
>
>