Elecraft

P3 New Features

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Mike K2MK

P3 New Features

The new P3 firmware has added some new items to the P3 menu and SVGA sub menu. The first one is labeled Amplifier and can be toggled on and off. It increases the height of the displayed signals on the P3 but does not change the amplitude scale on the left side. Obviously some further explanation is required.

I slipped a thumb drive into the Keyboard socket on the SVGA board and then located some new items on the SVGA sub menu of the P3. By pressing the Select knob for the menu item SVGA Ubmp it loaded a bitmap image of the SVGA screen onto the thumb drive. It included decoded text that I had at the bottom of the screen. The image size was 1282KB for my 1280 x 1024 monitor setting.

You might want to attach a pull string to your thumb drive. It's close proximity to the SVGA connector and the serial connector made it tough to get a good grip for thumb drive extraction.

73,
Mike K2MK

Stephen G4SJP

Re: P3 New Features

It might make sense to install a short USB extender cable for the back of
the P3 so that either the keyboard or the USB drive can be inserted without
mucking around at the back of the gear - I hate doing that!

73 Stephen G4SJP

On 28 February 2013 19:48, Mike K2MK <[hidden email]> wrote:

> The new P3 firmware has added some new items to the P3 menu and SVGA sub
> menu. The first one is labeled Amplifier and can be toggled on and off. It
> increases the height of the displayed signals on the P3 but does not change
> the amplitude scale on the left side. Obviously some further explanation is
> required.
>
> I slipped a thumb drive into the Keyboard socket on the SVGA board and then
> located some new items on the SVGA sub menu of the P3. By pressing the
> Select knob for the menu item SVGA Ubmp it loaded a bitmap image of the
> SVGA
> screen onto the thumb drive. It included decoded text that I had at the
> bottom of the screen. The image size was 1282KB for my 1280 x 1024 monitor
> setting.
>
> You might want to attach a pull string to your thumb drive. It's close
> proximity to the SVGA connector and the serial connector made it tough to
> get a good grip for thumb drive extraction.
>
> 73,
> Mike K2MK
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/P3-New-Features-tp7570510.html
> Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> ______________________________________________________________
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Jim Sheldon

Re: P3 New Features

I actually bought a 2 port USB 2.0 mechanical switch which has a 3 foot cable on it and use it to switch between my Logitech wireless keyboard and the thumb drive. Found it on fleaBay for less than 10 bucks but I don't remember now just which Chinese company had it listed. Took about a week to get here from Hong Kong and the shipping was free.

As stated in the firmware doc's, not all thumb drives are created equal and only some will work. You may have to try more than one before you find one that works as I did. The one I'm currently using is a SanDisk Cruzer Glide 4gig I picked up at Walmart. Don't remember the price.

Don't know the availability in the UK but I'm sure you can find something.

Jim - W0EB

> It might make sense to install a short USB extender cable for the
> back of the P3 so that either the keyboard or the USB drive can be
> inserted without mucking around at the back of the gear - I hate
> doing that!
>
> 73 Stephen G4SJP
>
>

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Bill Clarke

Re: P3 New Features

Did not know there were significant differences between thumb drives. I
have a couple of dozen of assorted makes/sizes and have never had a
glitch with any of them. Are there specific models to stay away from for
use with Elecraft?

Bill W2BLC

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gm3sek

Re: P3 New Features

All the 'plain vanilla' USB1 and USB2 drives that I tried would work with
the pre-beta firmware, but download times varied from 20 seconds up to
almost 50 seconds. The fastest that I tried was a Kingston Data Traveler 8GB
USB2.0. A drive labelled "USB3.0" didn't work at all.

If Elecraft can move on to make that same USB port function with a mouse as
well, allowing point-and-click tuning (left click moves VFOA, right-click
moves VFOB) that would leave the PC-based SDRs with very little competitive
advantage.

73 from Ian GM3SEK

>-----Original Message-----
>From: [hidden email] [mailto:elecraft-
>[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Bill Clarke
>Sent: 28 February 2013 21:42
>To: [hidden email]
>Subject: Re: [Elecraft] P3 New Features
>
>Did not know there were significant differences between thumb drives. I
>have a couple of dozen of assorted makes/sizes and have never had a
>glitch with any of them. Are there specific models to stay away from for
>use with Elecraft?
>
>Bill W2BLC
>
>
>______________________________________________________________
>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

dmb@lightstream.net

Re: P3 New Features

Agreed!

The combination of mouse-based point-and-click tuning within the stable
context of the P3's fixed-tune mode, would be a powerful asset. This
can currently be achieved with the LP-PAN/NaP3 combination, but it would
be great to have that capability without the requirement of a separate
computer.

73, Dale WA8SRA

On 2/28/2013 5:12 PM, Ian White wrote:

> ...
>
> If Elecraft can move on to make that same USB port function with a mouse as
> well, allowing point-and-click tuning (left click moves VFOA, right-click
> moves VFOB) that would leave the PC-based SDRs with very little competitive
> advantage.
>
>
> 73 from Ian GM3SEK
>
>
>

M0XDF

Re: P3 New Features

In reply to this post by Stephen G4SJP

Or purchase an A/B USB switch and leave both plugged in?
73 de David, M0XDF (K3 #174, P3 #108)
--
I am told I talk in shorthand and then smudge it. - J.R.R. Tolkien (1892 - 1973)

On 28 Feb 2013, at 20:09, Stephen Prior wrote:

> It might make sense to install a short USB extender cable for the back of
> the P3 so that either the keyboard or the USB drive can be inserted without
> mucking around at the back of the gear - I hate doing that!
>
> 73 Stephen G4SJP
>
>
> On 28 February 2013 19:48, Mike K2MK <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> The new P3 firmware has added some new items to the P3 menu and SVGA sub
>> menu. The first one is labeled Amplifier and can be toggled on and off. It
>> increases the height of the displayed signals on the P3 but does not change
>> the amplitude scale on the left side. Obviously some further explanation is
>> required.
>>
>> I slipped a thumb drive into the Keyboard socket on the SVGA board and then
>> located some new items on the SVGA sub menu of the P3. By pressing the
>> Select knob for the menu item SVGA Ubmp it loaded a bitmap image of the
>> SVGA
>> screen onto the thumb drive. It included decoded text that I had at the
>> bottom of the screen. The image size was 1282KB for my 1280 x 1024 monitor
>> setting.
>>
>> You might want to attach a pull string to your thumb drive. It's close
>> proximity to the SVGA connector and the serial connector made it tough to
>> get a good grip for thumb drive extraction.
>>
>> 73,
>> Mike K2MK
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> View this message in context:
>> http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/P3-New-Features-tp7570510.html
>> Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>> ______________________________________________________________
>> 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
>>
> ______________________________________________________________
> 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

ve3dvy

Re: P3 New Features

In reply to this post by Bill Clarke

Thumb drives are definitely not created equal. other than download
speeds there are other timing issues. the combination of the OS on a
desktop or laptop computer and the firmware on the motherboard seems to
deal with poor quality thumb drives. but just about any dedicated
hardware that just has basic USB support will not like substandard thumb
drives. At work we use thumb drives to load and upgrade firmware on
much of our equipment and find that many types fail. Oddly its not
always the more expensive brand names that work. we have a bunch of
no-name drives from an unknown source that just fine. The Kingston
Data Traveler is the one that is recommended by engineering and work well.

On 2/28/2013 16:42, Bill Clarke wrote:

> Did not know there were significant differences between thumb drives.
> I have a couple of dozen of assorted makes/sizes and have never had a
> glitch with any of them. Are there specific models to stay away from
> for use with Elecraft?
>
> Bill W2BLC
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> 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
>

Paul Saffren N6HZ

Re: P3 New Features

In reply to this post by Mike K2MK

By accident, two diagnostic commands in the P3 MCU firmware were left in for the latest release of version 1.25. These were menu items that allowed the rear IF amplifier to be enabled and disabled along with a menu command that allowed the LCD display to be re-initialized. Also the regular wig-wag LEDs on the back of the P3 MCU board were disabled. We've since corrected the issue by releasing version 1.26 of the P3 firmware, which is currently available through regular firmware download. Only the P3 firmware needs to be updated.

73,

Paul