[Elecraft] K3 Remote VFO Tuning

[Jim Sheldon]

It was mentioned to me by someone that the Griffin Technologies PowerMate supposedly would not work with Windows 7. This was after I had already ordered one so I decided to forge ahead and attempt to get it working with G4ILO's K-Tune and Windows 7 Pro.  

Before the PowerMate arrived, I downloaded and installed the current Windows XP and Vista driver which installed fine, W7pro didn't barf on it.  I waited until the PowerMate arrived (a few minutes ago) and installed K-Tune (also installed fine and didn't error out on W7pro).  Read through Julian's short, well written doc file on K-Tune and followed his instructions on setting up the PowerMate to provide the proper key stroke emulation to K-Tune.

Folks, it works just like I hoped it would.  Apparently the Vista driver for the Power Mate works with Windows 7 Professional at least.  I don't know about Windows 7 Home and Home Premium, but I suspect it will work with them as well.

The way I have my station set up, I used to have to reach across the keyboard to Tune the K3 and in a contest that got to be tiring because I had to keep my arm up high to keep from hitting one of the function keys and triggering one of N1MM's macro's at the wrong time.  Now, I can set the tuning knob wherever is convenient and it's so much more comfortable.

The next part of the project was to set up a "virtual serial port" emulator of some sort.  I've had mixed results running LP-Bridge before, so I downloaded and installed the one Julian recommends in his documentation from Eterlogic.  Again, following G4ILO's instructions, it installed fine and once I beat it into submission (joking here), it wasn't really difficult to configure and now I can have up to 4 programs operating off the real port that's connected to the K3.  

So far I've tested N3FJP's AC-Log 3.3 and several of his contest logging programs running with K-Tune and the loggers poll and read the K3 just fine at the same time the PowerMate is tuning it via the K-Tune program.  

Everything is working on a 64bit PC running Windows 7 Pro so contrary to some information out there, it WILL work.

Jim - W0EB