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Mike Parkes

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Hello Elecraft group,
I don't own anything made by Elecraft yet however I have been shopping for
an HF rig to get active again (I have been off the air for a number of
years for personal reasons). I really like Elecraft's products, and I am
intrigued by the 'software definable radio' possibilities in this new breed
of amateur radio equipment design.

I have a question though, related to what can or can't be done with an
Elecraft SDR transceiver*. Is the source "code" able to be modified by the
End User?* Or is it proprietary in some way so that only those at Elecraft
can touch the code? I have been monitoring this list for while now and have
yet to read anything like, "hey check out this cool change I made on the
Elecraft KX3 code! Before the radio only did this - now it does this!" and
next thing you know there are some very cool user modified code being made
available. Like, the ham being able to add their call into the code? (see this
example
<https://spacemodels.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/customized-display-kx3.jpg>
)

73's
Mike AB7RU

PS I tried to send this with the image attached and it got kicked back with
an error message so apologies if is a duplicate email list submission from
me.
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Don Wilhelm

Re: (no subject)

Mike,

The Elecraft gear is software defined radio, but the software is not
open source and not available for modification by the user.

Software changes may be requested of the developers, and some may be
implemented if the user audience that will use those added functions is
sufficiently large. So yes, the firmware is proprietary to Elecraft,
and not open source.

The K3 and K3S are hybrid designs which have an analog front end with
down-conversion to 15kHz where the DSP software is processed.

The KX3 and KX2 use a quadrature mixer which brings the IF directly to
an IF that is then processed in DSP.

You will find that the Elecraft gear to be among the top performers for
receive (see the Sherwood listings). The K3, K3S, KX3, KX2 and the pure
analog K2 are quite high on the Sherwood ratings.

If you are looking for superior receive characteristics, then Elecraft
may be your answer. If you are looking for open source firmware with
the resultant "user defined" functions, then you might want to look at
the HDSDR which will allow open source alterations - https://openhpsdr.org/.

The Elecraft reflector will reject any images and other forms of HTML.
This reflector is plain text only. If you want others to view images,
put them in a publically available place and provide a link in your post.

73,
Don W3FPR

On 5/11/2017 10:38 PM, Mike Parkes wrote:

> Hello Elecraft group,
> I don't own anything made by Elecraft yet however I have been shopping for
> an HF rig to get active again (I have been off the air for a number of
> years for personal reasons). I really like Elecraft's products, and I am
> intrigued by the 'software definable radio' possibilities in this new breed
> of amateur radio equipment design.
>
> I have a question though, related to what can or can't be done with an
> Elecraft SDR transceiver*. Is the source "code" able to be modified by the
> End User?* Or is it proprietary in some way so that only those at Elecraft
> can touch the code? I have been monitoring this list for while now and have
> yet to read anything like, "hey check out this cool change I made on the
> Elecraft KX3 code! Before the radio only did this - now it does this!" and
> next thing you know there are some very cool user modified code being made
> available. Like, the ham being able to add their call into the code? (see this
> example
> <https://spacemodels.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/customized-display-kx3.jpg>
> )

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wayne burdick

Not open source, but still user-programmable/customizable

Administrator

In reply to this post by Mike Parkes

Hi Mike,

As others have pointed out, our products’ software and firmware are generally not open-source. However, there are a few things you can do to customize them:

- Each rig (as well as accessories such as panadapters, ATUs, and amplifiers) has a very comprehensive set of remote-control commands. You can use these in your own software applications. Third party transceiver-control programs like “HRD” make extensive use of these commands. See the programmer’s reference on our website for individual products.

- Remote-control commands can be combined into “macros” using the Utility software we provide. These can then be assigned to buttons within the utility itself, or sent to the radio for assignment to switches. The K3S, for example, has up to 10 user-programmable switch functions. Macros can be optionally triggered by our K-Pod controller, which many contesters place by their computer keyboard to make frequent radio control changes more efficient.

- You can have the radio display a “banner” on power-up (yes, including your callsign if desired)

We also take input from customers, and as time permits, incorporate new features. For example, we added PSK63 modulation/demodulation to some of our transceivers not long ago. This is the sort of extensibility that makes a transceiver an “SDR”.

73,
Wayne
N6KR

> On May 11, 2017, at 7:38 PM, Mike Parkes <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Hello Elecraft group,
> I don't own anything made by Elecraft yet however I have been shopping for
> an HF rig to get active again (I have been off the air for a number of
> years for personal reasons). I really like Elecraft's products, and I am
> intrigued by the 'software definable radio' possibilities in this new breed
> of amateur radio equipment design.
>
> I have a question though, related to what can or can't be done with an
> Elecraft SDR transceiver*. Is the source "code" able to be modified by the
> End User?* Or is it proprietary in some way so that only those at Elecraft
> can touch the code? I have been monitoring this list for while now and have
> yet to read anything like, "hey check out this cool change I made on the
> Elecraft KX3 code! Before the radio only did this - now it does this!" and
> next thing you know there are some very cool user modified code being made
> available. Like, the ham being able to add their call into the code? (see this
> example
> <https://spacemodels.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/customized-display-kx3.jpg>
> )
>
> 73's
> Mike AB7RU
>
> PS I tried to send this with the image attached and it got kicked back with
> an error message so apologies if is a duplicate email list submission from
> me.
> ______________________________________________________________
> 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
> Message delivered to [hidden email]

Tim Seed

Re: (no subject)

In reply to this post by Mike Parkes

Mike,
Most SDR “hacking” unless those very hardcore people with good RF building skills takes place on the I/Q (SDR Output) data.

I would point you in the path of GNU-Radio which offers IMHO the easiest path to SDR processing for learning DSP processing and implementation. Depending on the SDR Radio you can also generate your Signal here and send it back out via your SDR Device.

There are plenty of Open-Source SDR Projects out there - some more understandable than others

I would highly recommend the Red Pitaya project as a good neutral SDR test bed, for this you can mess with EVERYTHING !!

73s

Tim A45WG, Muscat Oman

> On May 12, 2017, at 6:38 AM, Mike Parkes <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Hello Elecraft group,
> I don't own anything made by Elecraft yet however I have been shopping for
> an HF rig to get active again (I have been off the air for a number of
> years for personal reasons). I really like Elecraft's products, and I am
> intrigued by the 'software definable radio' possibilities in this new breed
> of amateur radio equipment design.
>
> I have a question though, related to what can or can't be done with an
> Elecraft SDR transceiver*. Is the source "code" able to be modified by the
> End User?* Or is it proprietary in some way so that only those at Elecraft
> can touch the code? I have been monitoring this list for while now and have
> yet to read anything like, "hey check out this cool change I made on the
> Elecraft KX3 code! Before the radio only did this - now it does this!" and
> next thing you know there are some very cool user modified code being made
> available. Like, the ham being able to add their call into the code? (see this
> example
> <https://spacemodels.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/customized-display-kx3.jpg>
> )
>
> 73's
> Mike AB7RU
>
> PS I tried to send this with the image attached and it got kicked back with
> an error message so apologies if is a duplicate email list submission from
> me.
> ______________________________________________________________
> 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
> Message delivered to [hidden email]