The butternut ‘refused’ to tune properly, the misquitoes were relentless and the sugar ands decided that my lap top was their new home. The hex beam managed to stay up for most of our efforts. Lots of rain and we both came down with some serious bronchitis (sniff, cough) We did manage 550 Q’s in CQWWCW 20 meter single op (V73XP) and over 2000Q’s total for V73TM. Short path was pointed into dense jungle, lots of signal attenuation. Plan B put us on Eneko.) South facing location so we had great long path. Pictures coming!Įneko (Arno was out of reach due to high seas. I use it on my KAT500, KPA500 and my TXBPF with the KX3. This has turned out to be a very useful little gadget for hooking the KX3 up to a multituded of band-data based devices. I’ve also layed out (but have not ordered yet) the K3 ACC simulator (mentioned in my February 2014 section). I’ve made provisions for automatic SWR sensing but that is another project. I’ll show pictures after they arrive and I get them built up. I really did not want to spend all that time building another proto and repairing this proto was out of the question so I have layed out (pc board lay out) and ordered a set of 10 boards ($25.00 for 10). The proto board lasted about a year, then, I managed to blow it up by back feeding the motor driver chips. I’ve also layed out a board to replace the proto-board I built for controlling the motor on my GS3 screw driver antenna. Quite happy with this portable QRO setup! I purchased a KX3 Elecraft to pack with me so I hope to chat with you QRP in some remote spot. If you are interested please send your info via this post and I will put you on the list.Īgo and 10 days in TI land. I need at least 9 on the list to do the group purchase. Orders placed between and will be shipped on. Pricing is $75 which inludes US postage to US locations. I don’t drill out the tiny front panel as I do not have equipment for the D sub so if you want one you will need to do the front panel yourself.Ī few have been sold but I still have a number available for sale to those interested. My miniumum board order had to be 10 boards. When I got home I decided I wanted to have a more robust version so I did a ‘board’ layout and improved the power supply circuit. I originally built this up on a wire bread board and used it on my Marshal Islands trip to drive my automatic band pass filter. The KX3 band decoder uses a tiny postage stamp size Arduino and the same exact driver chips as is used inside the K3. You can power this device with anything from 8 volts to 19 volts (safe for same battery/power use as the KX3) There is a 15 pin compact female sub D connector, just like on the back of the K3. It has two PC (3mm stereo) connectors so you can plug into your KX3 and your PC (you don’t need the PC if you have KX3 in AI (auto info) mode). The KX3 band decoder fits inside of a 3″ by 6″ by 1″ box. Owners manual here and Theory of Operations here It uses the same band signal drivers and coding as the K3 and shows up on the same exact pins! This allows you to connect any of your ham equipment that you can use with a K3 band selection data to the KX3! It sniffs your KX3 serial PC connection for band information and generates the band signals found on the 15 pin K3 ACC connector. Well you can! I designed a KX3 Band decoder package. Are you a KX3 owner? Ever wished you could squeeze band info out of your KX3 like you can on the K3? Control big amplifiers, automatic antenna tuners, band switches?
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