[Elecraft] KX3 Firmware Utility on Mac OS X Problems...

[Phil Hystad]

After seeing Wayne's message from earlier today about the KX3 rev. 1.61 firmware update being available I went to update the firmware on my KX3.  I ran into a couple of problems.

Problem 1:

I had started up the KX3 utility to load new firmware.  I ran into all kinds of problems getting it to talk to the KX3. Apparently, it looked like it was the wrong port but I had attempted the firmware upload and this seemed to affect my KPA500 and the KPA500 had MCU upload on the display.  Nothing would fix this, I tried a full power cycle (back side power switch) but when it booted up it still said MCU upload.  So, I decided to run the KPA500 utility and connect to that port and send all firmware to the KPA500.  This seemed to work as the KPA500 is now working fine.

But, how could I mess up the KPA500 by using the KX3 utility.  I reminded myself that I have seen this before but not as drastic where it needed a firmware refresh.  It looks like the KX3 utility program will begin to execute a firmware download WITHOUT first verifying that it is indeed talking to a KX3.  In this case, it was talking to a KPA500.

Has anyone else seen this problem or behavior?  Yes, clearly my fault on two counts: (1) I attempted a firmware load on a port without first testing the port communications; (2) I did not update the KX3 utility program as instructed in Wayne's e-mail as I just read enough of that e-mail to see that the KX3 firmware had been released.

Problem 2:

With the NEW KX3 utility, I started it up and went to find the right port.  I do this by testing comms on the port until successful.  For some reason they change from time to time (probably my mucking around with lots of devices).  So, I get a dialog box that says that the port does not appear to be a KX3.  I was just about to move the mouse to the OK button and clear that message dialog box when another dialog box came up telling me that I had new firmware to download to the KX3.  Now, my attempt at clearing any of these dialogs was locked up.  I think the two dialogs got into some kind of deadly embrace and nothing could be cleared.  I had to kill the KX3 process to clear things up.

Note: I have yet to successfully install the new KX3 firmware.  Right now, the KX3 utility is hung trying to complete a firmware download from Elecraft servers.  It should connect and then report to me that it already has the latest firmware but apparently it has not yet successfully connected.  Been 20 minutes and I figure that is long enough -- well, "kill -9" again.

73, phil, K7PEH