Two observations;
The string you say you send contains an LRC that is
?1 not E1. In addition there is no CRLF at the end...the complete string you need to send is:
3A30 3130 3630 3030 3031 3730 3145 310D 0A
or as we are in ASCII here anyway, in code display:
:010600001701E1\r\n
If sending that does not help; are you sure the unit is slave id 1, has the same baud rate etc...(i.e. does it respond to anything at all?).
Using a third-party modbus simulator you could check if it's your code or the unit / link.
Mads