[Elecraft] Skimmer and the K3S

[Don Wilhelm]

Pete,

I think you are mixing too many things together, and they are not 
necessarily related.
Let me try to 'unravel the ball of twine' for you.

The birdies/mirror images you encountered are not the fault of LP-Pan, 
but instead related to either your soundcard cables or the capability of 
the Panadapter display software that you were using.

Since you now have the P3 and are apparently happy with it for the 
Panadapter display,  I suggest you continue to use it.

BUT,  you cannot display Skimmer on the P3.

So 'what to do'? - I would suggest that you use the LP-Pan hardware.   
Connect the K3 IF output to both the P and the LP-Pan (use a BNC T adapter).

Connect the LP-Pan I/Q outputs to your computer soundcard and load 
Skimmer on your computer.    Configure CW Skimmer to use that soundcard 
and it will display whatever is within it's "hearing range".  The 
document at http://www.dxatlas.com/CwSkimmer/Files/Skimmerintro.pdf may 
be helpful with your setup.
Note carefully, you do not have to run NaP3 or other panadapter 
applications - CW Skimmer is independent of those.

If you need to run other PC applications (loggers and other rig control 
applications) that each want to use the COM port connection to your K3 
(in addition to CW Skimmer) - only one application can talk with the K3 
at the same time.  Enter LP-Bridge or Com-O-Com which create virtual 
ports on your PC.  IMHO LP-Bridge is a good choice for use with the K3, 
but all your applications that want to talk with the K3 will talk 
instead to their own LP-Bridge virtual ports - only LP-Bridge connects 
directly to the K3.

Hopefully that helps.

73,
Don W3FPR

On 9/2/2016 2:01 PM, Peter W2IRT wrote:
> Hello all,
> With the vast majority of my friends having gone the Flex route rather than
> the K3, I'm finding I'm at a rather huge disadvantage in terms of CW
> operation, and that's Skimmer, which is an absolute game-changer for
> everybody who's running it. I just can't figure out how to make it work
> acceptably well with the K3S/P3 combination I have here.
>
> I went the LP-PAN route and the birdies/mirror images make that device
> wholly unsuitable for me, so I'm back to square one. I don't want to spend
> another small fortune on interface boxes, but something better than LP-PAN
> is clearly the answer. I just don't know what it is, what to do once I buy
> it, or anything else.