[Elecraft] Harrowing P3SVGA firmware upgrade

[Dave Hachadorian]

I have two K3's, with P3SVGA's connected to each.  I haven't done 
any firmware upgrades in many months, so I decided to do it all 
last night.
Downloaded and installed K3 Utility 1.12.12.17
Downloaded and installed P3 Utility 1.12.10.4
Downloaded and installed K3 firmware 04.61 - no problem
Downloaded P3 firmware 01.24 - and then the fun began.

On the first P3, the existing software column had a bunch of 
question marks in fpga 0 through 4.  I tried to install all of 
the new software, but the process ended prematurely.  I'll cut 
out about two hours of details here, but I finally decided to to 
a master reset on the P3 (power on with "labels" pressed for 2 
seconds.)  After that, the entries in the existing firmware 
column of the P3 utility made sense, although they were 
mismatched, and I went ahead and successfully installed 01.24.

On the second P3, the software installation seemed to go well, 
but then the P3 was left in a state that would no longer 
communicate with the serial port.  I'll cut out about another two 
hours of details here (reboots, power cycling, different serial 
ports, etc.), but I finally decided to do a master reset on this 
P3 also, and now all is well.

All I have to do now is to set every parameter to my favorite 
state.  Fortunately, I made notes on each setting before starting 
the upgrade.

The computer involved is my XP contest desktop, with real serial 
ports on the motherboard.

I got through it, but jeez, it ought to be easier than this.

Dave Hachadorian, K6LL
Yuma, Arizona