[Elecraft] I wonder how many folks have had buyers remorse on a K3/K3S purchase?

[Richard Fjeld]

On 8/3/2015 4:22 PM, Marc Veeneman wrote:
"Maybe I can offer a counterpoint, I do regret my K3 purchase.  But I 
will not be selling it."
....................................................................................................

I have decided to come to Marc's defense on this.  It isn't just about 
speed.  In his explanation, he touched on lost characters and words.

I too, experience lost characters, even spaces which are ascii 
characters also.  Others have told me of the same problem. I have given 
up on reporting it to Elecraft.

I quit using the keyboard for qso's. Too bad, as it is a nice tool with 
the memories. I could also correct my spelling before it got 
transmitted. As I recall, this problem isn't just CW.

The failure rate is about once in every 30 characters, or so, counting 
spaces.  As for speed, it happens regularly as slow as 8 wpm which is 
about the slowest it will go.

It needs to be fixed.

Here is what happens:

The characters are being received from the USB keyboard and displayed in 
the send portion of the monitor correctly.  (my terminology)
As they are being sent to the K3, I can hear the skip as it occurs, and 
I do not see the skipped character displayed on the K3 display panel.
When a space is dropped, the two words get joined together.

It never skips an element of a character, it is always the whole 
character which I assume is Ascii at that point.

With the proper equipment set up on a bench, it should be possible to 
see where the failures are occurring, so that the cause can be determined.

I must say I have not checked for the latest F/W recently.  I would be 
pleased to learn that the fix is waiting for me, but from Marc's post it 
doesn't look like it.

Dick, n0ce