[Elecraft] USB to serial angst

[Don Wilhelm]

One can have the simple solution right now.  Just get a USB to serial 
adapter that has jackscrews on its serail end and permanently mount it 
on the back of the K3 - cable over to a USB port on the computer and one 
has that simple solution.  Support for the proper device drivers is the 
responsibility of the adapter manufacturer.

The "better" and more complex solution is to build a complete USB 
interface inside the K3.  When you connect it to a computer, it is 
recognized as an Elecraft K3 (not as a com port as the adapter would do) 
- then you load the driver(s) for your K3.

Here are a few problems starting with the applications that many hams 
use.  Those applications would have to be re-written to support the USB 
K3, so it will be a while before your favorite logger, etc. adds that 
product specific support as a USB device.
Elecraft would have to spend a lot of time and resources creating the 
drivers for every conceivable OS that is in use (or limit the number of 
OS versions that will work with the K3).  And then when a particular OS 
makes changes, spend a lot of time and effort doing regression testing 
to be certain it still works.  When a new OS comes out, Elecraft would 
have to have new K3 drivers which support that new OS version (on the 
day that the OS is available) - for now and forevermore - the 
alternative is to declare the K3 as obsolete with respect to a computer 
connection.  Keeping the drivers current is the responsibility of the 
device manufacturer unless the OS developer chooses to take over that 
device control and integrate support for it in the OS.  I just can't see 
that happening for the K3 at Microsoft, Apple, Sun Microsystems, etc.

The RS-232 standard provides a lot of protection from that kind of chaos 
for those devices that use a serial port.  There are a lot of devices 
that use the serial port, and will continue to do so for a good long 
time, serial port communications is *not* obsolete.  All a device has to 
do is decide if it is a DTE or a DCE in its design - usually the 
computer end is DCE.

So I say "sorry" to those who want to use a laptop computer with only 
USB ports as the main hamshack computer.  Why not dedicate a good 
desktop computer to the ham station.  Modern off-lease desktop computers 
are available for as little as $150 loaded with WinXP Pro, many with 2 
serial ports installed, and monitors are available for $99.  So for a 
$250 investment, you can have all your ham applications on a dedicated 
computer.  Add a router if you do not have a home network already and 
you can run that hamstation computer (and the K3 connected to it) from 
your laptop used anywhere in the world that you can obtain an internet 
connection.  Computers have become commodity items.

For my part, keep the serial interface, it will live long after USB is 
gone - there are too many commercial devices that use it for support to 
go away anytime soon.

73,
Don W3FPR

Brett Howard wrote:
> Actually its exactly that simple...
>
> I'm not sure that people would consider that an improvement as the only
> thing it does is move the USB to RS232 adapter into the radio rather
> than an external adapter but I think if everyone was using FTDI adapters
> there would be a lot fewer complaints about the adapters.
>
> ~Brett
>
> On Sat, 2010-03-13 at 11:26 -0800, Lew Phelps K6LMP wrote:
>   
>> Folks, I asked Elecraft about this before I bought my rig in January; they said it's "on the list" but not as easy to do as one might think.  I figured they could just drop an FTDI chipset into the rig in place of the RS232 jack, but it seems that it's not all that simple.
>>
>> Patience is a virtue.
>>     
>