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[K3] Bad COM port made K3 not work

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Edward R Cole

[K3] Bad COM port made K3 not work

I had a similar incident where my K3 locked up in transmit. I had
been using WSPR sw that controls PTT via the com port (RS-232). I
believe I was on 20m and it did transmit a carrier. I quickly
deduced that it was keyed from the computer and unplugged the RS-232
cable and cycled power and it was fine afterward. I would suspect
this is more a case of computer confusion than a K3 bug. (I probably
forgot to stop WSPR).

73, Ed - KL7UW

------------------------------

Message: 14
Date: Sun, 02 May 2010 11:24:33 -0700
From: "Carl Clawson" <[hidden email]>
Subject: [Elecraft] [K3] Bad COM port made K3 not work
To: "'Elecraft'" <[hidden email]>
Message-ID: <2E525A629436496D87DFD9543A4F3815@Thumbelina>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

I arrived at a friend's station for the 7th area QSO party at the crack of
dark yesterday morning and they were pulling hairs out over a misbehaving
K3. F/W V3.79. None of them knew the K3, whose owner hadn't arrived yet. It
had been working fine the previous evening as they were prepping for the
contest.

It would power up but as soon as you hit any button it would send a
continuous side tone. I don't know if it was actually transmitting but the
user interface would become mostly non responsive. You could turn it off
with the power button and that was about it. There was no ERR KEY or ERR PTT
display, so it doesn't seem like it was just a problem with the radio keying
up. We were using VOX and not the COM port for PTT, but I forget if VOX was
on. We couldn't have turned if off if it had been. There was one of the ERR
BP# codes showing because the CONFIG menu wrongly had the KPBF3 installed. I
don't know how that happened but I suspect someone got into the CONFIG menu
and did that by mistake. Likely that's an unrelated fact. Also, this was a
"real" COM port, not a USB adapter. There wasn't any radio control software
running on the PC, although N1MM had been running OK with the K3 earlier.

The Yaesu guy in the crowd loudly gloated that this was yet more evidence
that the K3 is a flaky radio. I tried to ignore him while I worked on it. I
unplugged it from its COM port and suddenly the radio was fine. Something
with the port was seriously disrupting the radio firmware. We proceeded to
use a different port.

No problem now, just a war story and something rather odd that I don't think
I've heard before. I'd be interested if anyone had a clue what might have
caused it. Details are sketchy and/or missing because I was doing this under
pressure to get up and running in the contest, with a Yaesu guy yelling in
my ear.

73, Carl WS7L
K3 #486

73, Ed - KL7UW, WD2XSH/45
======================================
BP40IQ 500 KHz - 10-GHz www.kl7uw.com
EME: 144-600w, 432-100w, 1296-60w, 3400-fall 2010
DUBUS Magazine USA Rep [hidden email]
======================================

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Carl Clawson

Re: [K3] Bad COM port made K3 not work

I had suspected something like what you suggest, Ed, but I double checked
that no S/W was running -- although with N1MM there's a separate executable
for keying the CW and I did not check for that. What was weird was that the
rig powered up fine with no error message (except the ERR BP, which was
probably human error) and only went nuts when you touched a button. If PTT
or a key closure were asserted at power up, we should have seen ERR KEY or
ERR PTT and we did not.

And to whoever it was who pointed out Tom's "click" pun, thanks! I have
trained myself so thoroughly to not complain about spelling and grammar
errors on the Internet that I completely failed to notice. And I love a good
groaner! I don't know if my Yaesu friend - who's a really great guy BTW -
has done the click mods to his FT-1000MPs (3 of `em at last count). I'll
remember to needle him about it...

73 -- Carl WS7L

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email]
> [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Edward R Cole
> Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 10:18 AM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: [Elecraft] [K3] Bad COM port made K3 not work
>
> I had a similar incident where my K3 locked up in transmit.
> I had been using WSPR sw that controls PTT via the com port
> (RS-232). I believe I was on 20m and it did transmit a
> carrier. I quickly deduced that it was keyed from the
> computer and unplugged the RS-232 cable and cycled power and
> it was fine afterward. I would suspect this is more a case
> of computer confusion than a K3 bug. (I probably forgot to
> stop WSPR).
>
> 73, Ed - KL7UW
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 14
> Date: Sun, 02 May 2010 11:24:33 -0700
> From: "Carl Clawson" <[hidden email]>
> Subject: [Elecraft] [K3] Bad COM port made K3 not work
> To: "'Elecraft'" <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <2E525A629436496D87DFD9543A4F3815@Thumbelina>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> I arrived at a friend's station for the 7th area QSO party at
> the crack of dark yesterday morning and they were pulling
> hairs out over a misbehaving K3. F/W V3.79. None of them knew
> the K3, whose owner hadn't arrived yet. It had been working
> fine the previous evening as they were prepping for the contest.
>
> It would power up but as soon as you hit any button it would
> send a continuous side tone. I don't know if it was actually
> transmitting but the user interface would become mostly non
> responsive. You could turn it off with the power button and
> that was about it. There was no ERR KEY or ERR PTT display,
> so it doesn't seem like it was just a problem with the radio
> keying up. We were using VOX and not the COM port for PTT,
> but I forget if VOX was on. We couldn't have turned if off if
> it had been. There was one of the ERR BP# codes showing
> because the CONFIG menu wrongly had the KPBF3 installed. I
> don't know how that happened but I suspect someone got into
> the CONFIG menu and did that by mistake. Likely that's an
> unrelated fact. Also, this was a "real" COM port, not a USB
> adapter. There wasn't any radio control software running on
> the PC, although N1MM had been running OK with the K3 earlier.
>
> The Yaesu guy in the crowd loudly gloated that this was yet
> more evidence that the K3 is a flaky radio. I tried to ignore
> him while I worked on it. I unplugged it from its COM port
> and suddenly the radio was fine. Something with the port was
> seriously disrupting the radio firmware. We proceeded to use
> a different port.
>
> No problem now, just a war story and something rather odd
> that I don't think I've heard before. I'd be interested if
> anyone had a clue what might have caused it. Details are
> sketchy and/or missing because I was doing this under
> pressure to get up and running in the contest, with a Yaesu
> guy yelling in my ear.
>
> 73, Carl WS7L
> K3 #486
>
>
>
> 73, Ed - KL7UW, WD2XSH/45
> ======================================
> BP40IQ 500 KHz - 10-GHz www.kl7uw.com
> EME: 144-600w, 432-100w, 1296-60w, 3400-fall 2010 DUBUS
> Magazine USA Rep [hidden email]
> ======================================
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html

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Jan Erik Holm

Re: [K3] Bad COM port made K3 not work

Strange! How can K2LE be a nice guy when he acts like
he does?
/ Jim
---------------
On 2010-05-03 22:14, Carl Clawson wrote:
> groaner! I don't know if my Yaesu friend - who's a really great guy BTW -
> has done the click mods to his FT-1000MPs (3 of `em at last count). I'll
> remember to needle him about it...
>
> 73 -- Carl WS7L
>
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W8JI

Re: [K3] Bad COM port made K3 not work

Some people always want to believe they magically have the
only FT1000 series radio that never had severe keyclicks.
They get a little defensive to the first few dozen
complainers until it sinks in that every Yaesu made for a
number of years had a bad problem, and there were no factory
exceptions for any of the FT1000 series. It's more a matter
of denial in most cases.

It also can be related to other parts of the system like
switching times on amplifiers, non-linear (or class C)
amplifiers on CW, or bad connections in antennas or cables.
It's a constant effort to have a clean signal.

> Strange! How can K2LE be a nice guy when he acts like
> he does?
> / Jim
> ---------------
> On 2010-05-03 22:14, Carl Clawson wrote:
>> groaner! I don't know if my Yaesu friend - who's a really
>> great guy BTW -
>> has done the click mods to his FT-1000MPs (3 of `em at
>> last count). I'll
>> remember to needle him about it...
>>
>> 73 -- Carl WS7L
>>
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list:
> http://www.qsl.net/donate.html

Carl Clawson

Re: [K3] Bad COM port made K3 not work

In reply to this post by Jan Erik Holm

I was not talking about K2LE. I did not mention a name or call sign in my
little anecdote.

73, Carl

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email]
> [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jan Erik Holm
> Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 9:16 PM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] [K3] Bad COM port made K3 not work
>
> Strange! How can K2LE be a nice guy when he acts like he does?
> / Jim
> ---------------
> On 2010-05-03 22:14, Carl Clawson wrote:
> > groaner! I don't know if my Yaesu friend - who's a really great guy
> > BTW - has done the click mods to his FT-1000MPs (3 of `em at last
> > count). I'll remember to needle him about it...
> >
> > 73 -- Carl WS7L
> >

Jan Erik Holm

Re: [K3] Bad COM port made K3 not work

In reply to this post by W8JI

Yes of course, I know. However there is NOT a click free MP,
not even the ones the claim is "fixed". They still click
however of course much less.

/ Jim
---------
On 2010-05-04 11:22, Tom W8JI wrote:

> Some people always want to believe they magically have the only FT1000
> series radio that never had severe keyclicks. They get a little
> defensive to the first few dozen complainers until it sinks in that
> every Yaesu made for a number of years had a bad problem, and there were
> no factory exceptions for any of the FT1000 series. It's more a matter
> of denial in most cases.
>
> It also can be related to other parts of the system like switching times
> on amplifiers, non-linear (or class C) amplifiers on CW, or bad
> connections in antennas or cables. It's a constant effort to have a
> clean signal.
>
>> Strange! How can K2LE be a nice guy when he acts like
>> he does?
>> / Jim
>> ---------------
>> On 2010-05-03 22:14, Carl Clawson wrote:
>>> groaner! I don't know if my Yaesu friend - who's a really great guy
>>> BTW -
>>> has done the click mods to his FT-1000MPs (3 of `em at last count). I'll
>>> remember to needle him about it...
>>>
>>> 73 -- Carl WS7L
>>>

Jan Erik Holm

Re: [K3] Bad COM port made K3 not work

In reply to this post by Carl Clawson

Oh I´m sorry. Well the other guy did. I did understand
it like K2LE was your friend. Bad understanding at
my end, sorry.

/ Jim SM2EKM
------------------------
On 2010-05-04 16:38, Carl Clawson wrote:

> I was not talking about K2LE. I did not mention a name or call sign in my
> little anecdote.
>
> 73, Carl
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: [hidden email]
>> [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jan Erik Holm
>> Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 9:16 PM
>> To: [hidden email]
>> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] [K3] Bad COM port made K3 not work
>>
>> Strange! How can K2LE be a nice guy when he acts like he does?
>> / Jim
>> ---------------
>> On 2010-05-03 22:14, Carl Clawson wrote:
>>> groaner! I don't know if my Yaesu friend - who's a really great guy
>>> BTW - has done the click mods to his FT-1000MPs (3 of `em at last
>>> count). I'll remember to needle him about it...
>>>
>>> 73 -- Carl WS7L
>>>

Dunc Carter - W5DC

Re: [K3] Bad COM port made K3 not work

In reply to this post by Jan Erik Holm

W5JAW has a click free MP but he says making it totally click free
required much more work than just the common modifications - the fix
included a multi-stage ALC modification.

Two comments from Jim:

"As I told you some time back, I worked real hard on optimizing the
keying waveform on my rig. It's as close to optimum as I could get
it; the result is "Gaussian" in shape. Very narrow bandwidth, yet still
clear copy up to 100 WPM. Due to the messy way that Yaesu implemented
the keying, it was necessary to modify several stages of the IF string
to achieve this without screwing up the QSK operations."

and:

"Re: Key click mods: The W8JI mod does help a lot, but is far from
optimum. Much better than nothing. Because it depends on a simple RC
filter on the gate of a MOSFET, it provides a very asymetrical wave
shape. Also, since the transfer characteristics of the FET vary widely,
the rise/fall times do too. Also, I still enjoy QRQ operations, with
QSK, and these simple fixes don't work very well for that.

The other problem with these rigs is that even with good wave shaping,
there can still be a significant thump on the first dit of a string if
there has been a 1 second delay or more since the last character was
sent. This is due to the way the ALC works. The power level is
controlled by setting a threshold in this circuit. The attack time is
very fast, and will create a click, even with earlier waveshaping. I
solved this by decoding the CW mode from available logic levels, and
then, when in this mode, biased the ALC input just below threshold
level. This makes the first dit after a delay look same as any following.

I can always tell when someone is using a 1000mp with a simple click
fix. No clicks except at the start of a new word."

Dunc, W5DC

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Jan Erik Holm

Re: [K3] Bad COM port made K3 not work

Oh I was wrong. In this case this is very good
information. However I guess since the mod is
as I understand it quite extensive not too many
will do it. I hope W5JAW will spread the info
on the mod.

By the way sorry for the Yaesu bandwith on the
Elecraft list.

Jim SM2EKM
--------------
On 2010-05-04 18:49, Duncan Carter wrote:
> W5JAW has a click free MP but he says making it totally click free
> required much more work than just the common modifications - the fix
> included a multi-stage ALC modification.
>
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