[Elecraft] Very late to the party - computer rig control and sound card modes for K3

[Fred Jensen]

A wise observation I learned during the Apollo missions in the late 60's 
was, "Regardless of how reliable parts are, put enough on the rocket and 
something will always be broken."  You don't really need much of an 
"interface" between computer and radio.  In many cases, they're just 
more black boxes requiring configuration.

You can participate in RTTY contests with a couple of stereo audio 
cables and some free software [many of the logging programs interface 
"almost" seamlessly with the several TTY modules ... MMTTY and Fldigi 
are two popular ones].  There doesn't seem to be any RTTY rag chews 
left.  That same setup will work for the FT modes, and again, a number 
of popular logging programs will interface to the software almost 
seamlessly.

Beware: all USB<-->Serial cables are not created equal.  Those with the 
Prolific chipset are to be cut in half and discarded.  There are also a 
lot of Prolific clones.  I've never had problems with the FTDI chipset 
cables.  I once had a problem getting a borrowed Signalink and Windows 
to play nicely in the sandbox and returned it to its home.

Bottom line recommendation if you're just starting out ... keep it as 
simple as you can, and creep up on working solutions one step at a time.

73,

Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
Washoe County

Paul Barlow wrote on 7/18/2023 1:58 AM:
> Also, I've never used the FT8 type modes. I understand they use the pc for all the signal processing, and I could interface the K3 directly using audio cables and VOX. I see that there are products available like the SignaLink which interface with a pc using usb, which I think might be a less fiddly option.
>
> I guess these subjects have been beaten to death years ago, is there somewhere I could look to find some concise information?
>
> 73,
>
> Paul EI5KI
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