I've been using the Remote Rig interfaces with my K3 for several years and the K3/Mini for the past 6 months or so. I'm a big fan of the Remote Rig devices, not a fan of the K3/Mini.
I started out doing remote operating with the K4VV group using an all software approach and the Remote Rig devices are an enormous improvement - reduction in latency, better audio quality, the ability to essentially just have a very long mic/key/headset cords vs. doing remote PC control. You still need a decent Internet connection. The Remote Rig interfaces will **not** correct for packet loss or high jitter (variable latency) Internet connections. If your round trip delay is much over 150ms, or varies widely from ping to ping, or if you lose packets, CW in particular will not be usable. The Remote Rigs also have a gazillion parameters and the manuals don't quite get you there - almost everyone has to resort to the "million monkeys randomly hitting keys" approach to get everything going. The forums on the Remote Rig site are very helpful and W1UE in particular has posted a lot of good K3 guidance. The K3/Mini has been a big disappointment, especially at the price - I should have just gotten a bare bones K3. The major problem has been the audio on both TX and RX when connecting the headset to the Mini (vs. connecting to the RemoteRig). On TX, I get loud hum and on RX, the audio is 20db down compared to the audio coming out of the RemoteRig. I sent the Mini back, Elecraft sent it back saying it worked fine. (They didn't even contact me, which I objected to and they are fixing that problem in their process.) On RX, apparently that audio loss is due to a filter that was put in to deal with digital noise getting in the audio, but running the AF gain at 90% on the Mini is not acceptable to me - distortion up and no head room for low signals or turning off AGC, etc. So, I have to connect the headset to the RemoteRig, then audio is fine - but the cabling is less convenient and messy. Part of the reason I justified spending the $700 was to be able to essentially use the Mini just like I would a "real" K3, but I can't do that. I may bring along the Mini and Remote Rig set up on travel some day if I keep the Mini - that portability is about the only reason to keep it. Others have had the same audio issues, others just naturally connect their headset to the RemoteRig, others have had no problems with the Mini - your mileage may vary. 73 John K3TN -- View this message in context: http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/K3-0-Mini-Experiences-tp7603508p7603553.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:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
