That is the point yes. I wasn't saying it wasn't.
Excuse my previous comments which came across as confrontational, they weren't meant to be and my only excuse is lack of coffee ;-) I was merely outlining my thoughts which may be in agreement with what has already been said by others. I use the KX3 with external transverter for TX and an SDRPlay for receive. The point is there are many ways to skin a cat, and we have excellent cheap SDR receivers now which combined with any transmitter you have will accomplish what we need for the existing LEO linear transponders. Like Ed KL7UW, I also have an FT-736R which I picked up a few years ago when nobody wanted them as they thought the FT-847 was a better radio because it was newer. The FT-736R has a much cleaner transmitter (can be improved further with some simple mods), lacks a few important things like transmit inhibit for use with sequencers, and has a poor 435 MHz receiver in terms of strong signal handling. The 23cm modules are like rocking horse s**t to find though :-( but despite all that I am hanging on to mine as a backup rig and occasional satellite use. First we need the sats, and until then the manufacturers are not going to pull the trigger on an all in one VHF/UHF satellite box I fear. So the easiest option -now- for many who want to get their feet wet is a cheap wideband SDR receiver combined with any multi mode transmitter old or new. Many of the young new hams who are going to be interested in cube sats just don't have much money to spend unlike the relatively rich retired hams on this list, myself included. They will go for new technology which they can put together themselves, SDR dongles, Raspberry Pi, Etc. At a fraction of the cost of the cheapest all in one duplex box. They are the future of the hobby, and will have entirely different ideas than we old timers. This is a good thing. Similar things happened with the pacsats where many used old CB transceivers as their IF for Transverters to get PSK or FSK modems going for store and forward sats. Experimentation with cheap gear repurposed was the order of the day for many. The Icom 7300 with built in touch panoramic display points the way forward for all manufacturers, in a couple of generations we will have higher frequency versions with multiple receivers. If the 7300 had transverter facilities I might even have tried one, the price is right I feel. But I have no interest in a radio that only goes up to 70 MHz. I never operate below 50 MHz. I still love the KX3 which is my main transceiver for VHF, using an external transverter on 2m, building one for 70cm, and just bought a used 4m internal transverter for it which should do me for now. It isn't ideal as Elecraft didn't put in a transverter socket, but there are ways round it, a lot of switch boxes are required to route audio on receive and transmit for digital and SSB, and a frequency decoder on the RS-232 is needed to route RF and PTT send to the appropriate transverter. Perhaps a future KX4 might be less of a field radio and more of a shack radio so that less clutter is needed in the shack. I didn't go for a K3 or K3S as the KX3 does nearly everything I need and I feel that a new generation SDR radio must be coming along, so I will wait and see what happens. 73 from David GM4JJJ > On 25 May 2016, at 11:01, Andy McMullin <a...@rickham.net> wrote: > > But isn't that the point? > > The KXn family ARE SDR, with I and Q outputs ready for excellent pandapter > display with the PXn. > > Just want VHF/UHF instead of HF and it's all there. > > Andy, G8TQH > > Sent from my iPhone > >> On 25 May 2016, at 09:43, David Anderson via Elecraft >> <elecraft@mailman.qth.net> wrote: >> >> When I was active on the linear transponders of AO6 through to AO13 I never >> used a satellite duplex radio, always separates. We had much better >> satellites then, in decent orbits like AO-10. So Yaesu in particular brought >> out lovely expensive duplex radios. Great! However then the linear sats >> gradually died and were replaced by digital radio sats. Some FM one channel >> toy sats, but nothing like the old wide linear transponders. >> >> Only recently with FunCube and the Chinese Sats have we started to get >> linear voice transponders back, but again in low fast moving orbits. >> >> Many are now making use of SDR dongles or other SDR receivers as their >> receiver for sats, because they have many advantages over the old way of >> just being able to listen to your own receive channel. With an SDR and >> panoramic can see all of the passband of the transponder or transponders on >> multiple satellites at once. You can point and click on a signal of >> interest. Record the whole pass and play it back and see who you missed in >> the very short pass. You can run the SDR on a tablet computer in the >> field, and have more capability than your old FT-736R of olden days. >> >> In short, until we have high orbit transponders on VHF UHF like AO-10/13 no >> manufacturer is going to produce an FT-736R replacement. Any plans for a >> geostationary satellite would not use VHF UHF, but microwave to get the >> bandwidth required for a third of the world trying to access it at one time >> all the time. >> >> Things have moved on, a single duplex box isn't what is needed. A >> transmitter CAT coupled to an SDR panoramic receiver is much better. Point >> on the screen on the signal you see and with Doppler corrected software set >> the transmitter you have via CAT to the uplink frequency. It is also >> magnitudes cheaper. >> >> >> 73 from David GM4JJJ >> ______________________________________________________________ >> 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 >> Message delivered to a...@rickham.net > > ______________________________________________________________ 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 Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
