[Elecraft] K3-0-mini / K3 dilemma

[Mark Goldberg]

Not knowing much about the protocol Elecraft / Microbit uses, or the IT
staff at the facility, I have doubts about what is being done to figure out
what the problem is. There are tools, such as Wireshark to look at the
packets as they flow through or don't flow through the network. You don't
have to guess. It is likely that some firewall is blocking the packets,
either outgoing or returning. Firewall rules may need to be set up or
changed. Microbit looks like it requires port forwarding for ports
13000-13002 and that must be done in any routers in the way. If they are
doing double NAT on two routers, both will have to get port forwarding set
up. A good IT person should be able to figure this out with the right tools.

All that being said, I don't like port forwarding. I created an incoming
VPN that can be connected to from outside my network using OpenVPN. There
are issues with various firewalls letting the VPN through but if they
connect, the remote device looks like it is on the local network and
everything works, and is encrypted end to end. That is not easy to set up
though.

73,

Mark
W7MLG


On Wed, May 16, 2018 at 4:18 AM, John P. Cummins, Sr. <jpcumminssr at gmail.com
> wrote:

> I have been working with a retired doctor ham friend of mine who has moved
> into an assisted living facility.  He has been licensed and active for more
> than 40 years.
>
> He wanted to be able to use his K3 remotely and I had helped another
> friend of mine who is blind and is also a long time active ham get back on
> the air from a condo using the Kenwood TS480SAT -Remoterig RRC1258set
> implementation. This approach has worked for nearly 2 years without a hitch.
>
> I suggested to my doctor friend that we should test whether it would be
> possible to operate remotely from within the large facility where he
> lived.  So we met with the IT staff there and they had no issues and showed
> that his apartment had internet already installed. Before we ordered any
> equipment I borrowed the TS450SAT control head and Remoterig
> RRC1258-control and tested from his apartment at the assisted living
> facility and it worked perfectly.
>
> On the strength of the testing we ordered the K3-0-mini/K3 Twin package
> from Elecraft.  After getting over the shorted cable that goes to the ACC
> jack on the K3 and a dead power supply for the mini I successfully tested
> on my LAN and also from several other remote locations.  We then
> unsuccessfully attempted to operate from the assisted living facility.
>
> For more than a month now we have been communicating with Microbit and
> Elecraft K3 support trying to figure out what the problem is.  Additional
> tests with the TS-450SAT continue to operate perfectly from the facility
> and testing the K3-0-mini from several other sites out side of the assisted
> living facility also work perfectly.
>
> Working with the IT staff at the facility we are convinced that there is a
> difference in the packets being generated by the Elecraft and the Kenwood
> but I have not been able find any documentation to help identify that
> difference.  We feel certain that the internet server at the facility is
> finding something suspicious in the Elecraft packets that are not present
> in the Kenwood packets.
>
> Has anyone else run across something like this?
>
> John, AD4S
>
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