Now I have the KPA500 and KAT500 actually up and running for the first time. I am very happy with my purchase, and the combo is better integrated than anything else I have used. By integrated, I mean the boxes work together well. The fact that they are separate boxes, that I could purchase at different times, is a big plus for me. However, I have to disagree with those that have said that it all works like having a 500W transceiver. Examples: * Antenna selection now has to be done from the KAT500. I can't do it by the ANT button on the K3, so the labels on the antennas defined there are now useless. * The Power readout is now on the amp, and the Power knob on the K3 just shows the drive power. It is certainly valuable to be able to read the drive power, but in a 500W transceiver that would be a separate readout, and the Power adjustment readout would show the final output power. Again, I am happy, and all is good. But a future Electraft architecture that is to overshadow the competition would use a more global approach to settings that reflect the whole system rather than settings per box, and to achieve this the actual settings in a box (e.g. antenna selection in the tuner) would be controlled through a network rather than local panel controls. The controls would all originate from a controller (or multiple controllers in case of multiple operators operating independently), which could be dedicated devices a la Maestro, or PC's (for cheap users), or hardware transceivers such as the K3. Of course, the K3 would have to get firmware updates that would include more ANT choices, drive power display mode, selection of classic operation mode versus global controller mode, etc.
73, Erik K7TV ______________________________________________________________ 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
