[Elecraft] Product suggestion - Remote Panel for the K3

[dj7mgq at muenchen-mail.de]

Hallo Julian,

How economically viable a remote control box may or may not be and  
whether there are software hooks already available in the firmware,  
which would make this doable without an exhorbitant effort, would have  
to be judged by Elecraft. At any rate, at least here in Germany, it  
has become incresingly impossible for Hams to install antennas at  
home, especially in residental areas, so there may be a larger market  
for these kinds of products then one otherwise might think.

> Why not just use HRD or one of the many other software
> based options to remote control the radio?

A few reasons:

1) I use WinTest as logging software, especially during contests, and  
plan on doing so in the future. WinTest does not give you total  
control of the radio. The K3 "only" has one serial port, which would  
seem to preclude using a second bit of software simultaneously to  
control the rest of the radio's functions.

2) The interface of the K3's front panel is, imho, very good the way  
it is and not easily, in similar quality, replaceable with a computer  
keyboard, screen and mouse.

3) Encoding and decoding audio streams in a PC will, I think, cause  
more latency than a dedicated solution ala Remoterig. Latency is going  
to be a problem via the Internet anyhow, so anything which keeps it  
down is good.


vy 73 de toby