[Elecraft] RF into K3 via serial port?

[Bill Davis]

  In my transition to Win7, I added a 2 port serial PCI card (NewEgg purchase -- Sunix 5037A) to my Dell PC. I was going to use one of these 2 ports to communicate with my K3 Utility terminal program. Very handy CW / RTTY application. Shortly after installation I made a nice contact on 30m RTTY and then moved to 80m RTTY. SURPRISE!!  During TX the K3 hung in TX and only a couple of characters (if that) were ever transmitted. I was attempting to run about 70watts or so. Only by reducing power to a few watts would the RTTY transmission seemingly be successful.

  The 80m antenna is resonate and very low SWR even without the KXPA100 tuner. (My K3/10 is for VHF/UHF/Microwave IF use mostly, hence the external PA/Tuner).

  So RF is getting back into the K3 .. odd ... nothing is "hot" in the shack at all. My workaround is to use the new serial ports for other hardware/applications and use the one serial port in the Dell Dimension 4700 for the K3 / terminal program. Things are happy that way.

  I may investigate and try a ferrite core on the serial cable. But I will need to get an "HF" core since all of mine are for higher freq use. I just thought this was really odd. My serial cable is "homebrew" minimum conductor cable and I don't recall if it is shielded or not.


  Anyone else had any similar experiences??

73 Bill  K0AWU