>"Remote control -- The K4 comes with remote-control via Ethernet built in. One K4 can controlled by another, or by a tablet or PC. Eric must have demonstrated this 500 times at Dayton and I daresay he's getting good at it."
Wayne, Since 2015, N4CC and I have been operating a remote station on the FL/GA state line. A K3 and RemoteRig have been the centerpiece of the station. Hopefully, Elecraft has been getting feedback from its remote users on various networking and operability issues. While we consider the value of replacing the K3 with a K4, here's my list of items that would make the decision easier: 1) Incorporate variable panadapter streaming bandwidth, much the way that VNC users can change streaming bandwidth on the fly. Our station uses a Verizon 4G/LTE link on the "last mile." We're presently limited to a 30GB/month plan and between two users, we often approach the monthly limit with RemoteRig and VNC, especially during DXpedition activity. At low streaming settings, the display would need to show reasonably good resolution/screen refresh to be of any added value to us. Keep in mind that not all remote users have access to unlimited data plans; 2) Ability to kill audio streaming on the fly. When operating FT8, RTTY and other digital modes remotely with the digital applications residing on a host desktop via VNC or TeamViewer, there's absolutely no need to stream audio. An audio kill switch would save a tremendous amount of monthly data for users like us on a monthly data plan. 3) CW performance can be improved over RemoteRig. Instead of sending "dit and dah" elements, consider sending ASCII characters or a variant where full characters are transmitted in a data packet. K1EL remote software and the Ten Tec Omni VII stream CW in complete characters. In my experience, those systems have been far superior to that of RemoteRig. For five years, I used a pair of linked K1EL Winkeyers and never had the CW stuttering and missed keyed element issues I experience with RemoteRig. No doubt other users have had no issues but this is important to users like us who are dependent on multiple media forms in the complete transmission path (e.g., hybrid-fiber-coaxial to 4G/5G/LTE) where jitter and latency are constantly changing on the network. 4) Until a "K4 Mini" is released, it makes little sense to purchase a K4 if a companion K4 is required at the control point. That's a lot of dough sitting unused on the desktop. Any idea as to when a mini version will be released? These are my issues based on four years of remote experience with a K3. I'm sure other remote users may want to chime in with their own. All feedback is good. Paul, W9AC ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
