I learned from Eric the other day that the Elecraft P3 Pan Adapter is about to get some upgrades that ALL of us have been looking forward to – in fact the rear panel of the production unit already had the connector cut-outs punched, waiting for the electronics and firmware to arrive.

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The Pan Adapter SVGA display cards are just finishing final test and will be going to production very soon – which will give the P3  a number of great capabilities, including :

  • an SVGA port which can connect to an external monitor to give 1280 x 800 resolution (non-interpolated from the P3 native screen) – this means higher resolution from the DSP, not just res’d-up from the P3 LCD.
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  • The P3 will decode CW, RTTY and PSK (just like the K3 on the scrolling, ticker-tape display area of VFO-B, but ON THE EXTERNAL SCREEN..!!
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  • The Display adapter will have provision for a USB keyboard, so that you can have a digital QSO thru the P3 to the K3, without the need for an external laptop (except for logging, of course). During the QSO, your laptop will already have all the relevant radio information (frequency, mode, etc) thru the connected serial port (as usual).
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  • a number of other firmware upgrades will be released at the same time
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The Display adapter will use a custom graphics chip – which Elecraft was able to secure in reasonable  quantities (unlike the PC-graphics manufacturers who only take orders in the multi-hundred-thousands as a minimum), but the custom chip also allowed them to insert features that were important to Elecraft, not just the PC industry.

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Pricing is expected to be in the $350-400 range – very reasonable, when you consider that you just gained a large-screen for the pan-adapter and a full function digital encode/decode station..!!    I’ll be on the waiting list, as soon as it’s open for orders..!!