[Elecraft] KX3 CW Memory

[Geert Jan de Groot]

Hello,

On 04/10/2024 10:54, elecraft-request at mailman.qth.net wrote:
>> But what is the command to store a message in the CW memory?

> There isn't one.
> I think the KX3 Utility uses some type of special "direct write to
> non-volatile memory address" command.  They don't publish how to do that
> because it would be too easy to really mess up the KX3 firmware if they did.

I recently did some investigations (won't call it "reverse engineering" 
for legal reasons) on the KRC2 utility. This tool is made for Vista or 
older and making it work on Win10 is a challenge, mainly because runtime 
libraries are missing.

The good news is that the KRC2 uses a serial interface so building 
something that listens to the serial communication is not too difficult.

I can tell that the KRC2 utility "knows" the memory layout of the CPU 
controller of the KRC2 and indeed sends Intellec Hex to write / change 
part of the flash memory when config changes are required.

In case of the KRC2, I wonder if Elecraft can be asked to make available 
the source code of the visual basic program. And perhaps something can 
be community-rewritten in Python to give the software tool a longer life 
span. Keep in mind that the KRC2 design is 20 years old now.

I don't know about the KX3 utility but suspect a similar situation.
The problem here is that publishing anything about this would hamper 
future development - while I think a KRC2 successor is unlikely, I am 
sure Elecraft wants to keep tight control over anything that involves 
the firmware of their main radio products (and perhaps baseline of 
future products).
Still, it is serial communication so all you need to do is capture it.

It is unfortunate that Elecraft has to operate this way, but I do note 
that projects that do full source code (MCHF being one) don't have 
success the same way Elecraft has.

73, Geert Jan