[Elecraft] W2 serial command questions

[Vic Rosenthal K2VCO]

I spoke to an Elecraft employee about bugs in the W2, and he confirmed 
that there are a number of them and that they are planning to come out 
with a new version of the firmware at some point (I don't want to say 
'real soon now').

The manual IS incorrect about the alarm needing to be turned on each 
time you power on. In a previous firmware update they made it 'sticky' 
so that once you enable it, it stays enabled until you turn it off.

On 1/19/2014 7:20 AM, Pierfrancesco Caci wrote:
>
> Hello,
> I'm playing with the serial commands for the W2 wattmeter.
> First question, how often can I poll it? My main loop polls for status,
> forward, reverse and swr, then waits for a keypress for 0.2 seconds.
> Is it safe to reduce to 0.1 s?
> Then, in the output of the 'i' command, bytes 2 and 8 seem to have the
> same info, except that 8 also tells me if there's no sensor connected at
> all. So, what's the purpose of byte 2?
> The manual says that command 'c' would respond with 'c;' if alarm was
> not active. Instead, I only get ';'. Looks like a bug in the manual?
> Sometimes, one single 'c' is not enough to clear the alarm, I have to
> repeat the command.
> And about the alarm, the owner's manual says:
> "The SWR Alarm function must be enabled each time the W2 power is turned
> on."
> Instead, I see that it starts in Alarm ON mode. I can see this by
> tripping it, and also the first 'a' command will report 'a0', which
> means the alarm has been deactivated. Am I misunderstanding the manual?
>
> Thanks
>
> Pf
>
>
>

-- 
73,
Vic, K2VCO
Fresno CA
http://www.qsl.net/k2vco/