An update from
my last post regarding my Chameleon CHA P Loop antenna, the antenna bag zippers were repaired and the cost was 40.00 Canadian. I decided to have some heavy duty zippers installed and I emailed DX Engineering and we agreed the cost would be 50/50. I submitted the bill to Maria at DX Engineering and to my surprise the total amount was covered! I emailed Maria about this and she told me she took the bill to her boss and he informed Maria to cover the whole cost. DX Engineering for sure is a class act!!
Lets move along to another class act.....I have been using
Win4k3 suite software for rig control for over a year now. Tom VA2SFQ has software what will work with the Elecraft K3,K3S, KX3 and KX2. Tom has been updating the software on a very consistent basis. The software is very stable one just has to
read Eham to see it's rated 4.9 out of 5. I have emailed Tom with some questions and he has replied very fast with a solution. Recently I had some issues and we were emailing back and forth to try to bring things to a resolution. On the weekend Tom asked me if I had
Teamviewer (and I do) he wanted to use Teamviewer to take control of my PC and solve my issue once and for all. On Saturday evening I received a call from Tom on my cell and we linked my PC via Teamviewer and Tom took control. Tom stuck with me for 40 mins and he solved my issue and I was up and running again. I have never in all my days had this type of customer service. It is very obvious that Tom is committed to not only his software but to his customers. Tom was very pleasant on the phone as he sorted out the problem.
Customer service excellance
15 May 2017 | by 
HamRadioAuctions
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R&L Electronics
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Ears to Our World
Yes Mike Tom is one great person to deal with with awesome customer support. Win4K3Suite has been my main Elecraft interface for a number of yours.. I believe 4 or 5 years now. If you go to my qrz.com page you will see two K3’s one is running a 32 bit version of Win4k3 to control the top K3 for all digital. The 64 bit version is running the bottom K3, KAP500 and KAT500. Bot at the same time in many cases with the top K3 also running either FlDigi or WSJT-X+JTAlert. I also run one copy of Log4OM… Total integration.. The top K3 did not have IF output. I added that (very easy to add). I run the IF out to a SDRPlay RSP1 and Win4K3Suites gives me a real interactive panadaptor, similar to my P3 below.. I have also added a external TR switch to my KX3 and using the same SDRPlay I can not have a panadaptor for the little KX2… All being run by Win4K3Suite… Unlike HRD, you get one price and not yearly fees. You get real customer support and many free upgrades at no extra cost… If you have a K3, K3S, KX2, KX3 getting Win4K3Suite is a must have software.. You get 30 day free a fully functional software package. After a few days using it I am sure everyone will put it on a MUST have list…
My 2 cents… Now back under my rock… Thank you for sharing this also…
73 Harry K7ZOV
Good afternoon Harry always nice to hear from you. Sounds like you have a great setup over at your end. I did click over the QRZ.COM and you have a very nice pic of the setup. I do have a question…..with your pan-adapter setup did you have any ground loop issues? I am reading I may have to run an isolation transformer.
Thanks for stopping by
Mike
VE3WDM
Hello Mike,
I am not having any issues. That said I have read a few reviews/articles that stated others have. I guess it all depends on the setup. With my SDRPlay RSP1 I am running HDSDR, SDRUNO, console version 2.0 and a older version of 3.0 … Simon has been doing a lot with version 3 and has had a lot of bugs come up that he is fighting… I do NOT plan on updating V3 until I am 99% sure it is stable.. I am never 100% any software is stable..
PLEASE NOTE: I have been bad. I traded my KX3 for a IC-7300, then sold my PX3 for some added hobby $$$. The KX2 is doing more then I need and when it comes to the RX in a real world situation, the KX3 and KX2 are so close it is really hard to tell the difference. I have not used the KX3 for quite a while, where as the KX2 I really do take with me a lot …. NOW I am sure you want to know my opinion of the IC-7300…. It is entry level radio ONLY in the sense it is the first of a new line of ICOM direct sampling SDR that will be replacing the 7200, 7410, 7600, 7700 and one day the 7851. As far as being a entry level radio playing against the rest of them… NO WAY.. The radio it top end. Doing a few hours of A/B antenna switching with my K3 and hunting for weak signals, the 7300 so far copies just as well as the K3.. When I have done this with the 7000,7100, 7200, 706MKII6, Tentec Eagle, and recently the FT-991, the K3 always heard signals the others missed…. Right now I am thinking the IC-7300 is about 99.5% as good as the K3 and 1/4 the price…. More tests needed, like when the band is a mess with major contest of field day. I expect the K3 to win then, but I will say without question at this time the IC-7610 will come out ahead…. Time will tell
73 and have a great day and week.. Me..I am fighting a head an chest cold.. First one in many years…yuck
Good morning Harry I’m out for breakfast at the moment and I’m going to look up your SDR setup. Harry I too have owned and sold Elecraft equipment for ham buck. I have always been surprised how fast it sells! I am always interested how other new rigs stack up against each other. The other 3 rig manufactures are making leaps and bounds. Looking forward to some of your posts regarding the Icom rig.
Have a nice weekend
73,
Mike