Elecraft is looking at producing a new product for this market, which would essentially
be the K3 front panel with a serial port to connect to the RRC. This would be quick and
easy to develop and would keep the cost down. This would make the K3 implementation
very competitive with the TS-480 "heads", albeit on a much higher performance level.
There is no timing commitment on this product, since they have limited development
resources and have other priorities in the pipeline (KX3, etc.). I would not expect this
to be available before the middle of 2012, assuming they decide to produce it.
They will look into making the KX3 firmware function in terminal mode, however the KX3 is
lacking some features the K3 has, such as a second receiver. Therefore, the mapping would
not be that clean. If they decide to implement this in the KX3, it would also be once the KX3
firmware is stable, which also will take a while (the rig is not shipping yet).
73,
Mitch DJ0QN / K7DX
