Some "final" comments while watching this thread progress: I agree with Lyle... SDR does not mean "processing by PC". Our K3's and KX3's are fully qualified Software Defined Radios with processing on embedded processors. Sort of like what Flex is looking to build now. It doesnt matter where the code runs, folks, just because it doesnt run on external Intel silicon does not mean it aint an SDR!
The Embedded Systems approach is a safer path than trusting your device (perhipheral?) to the vagarities of personal computer OS and hardware "progress". At least you have SOME control of the environment! Professional applications have to be more resilient to the whims of software and hardware changes that will rear their ugly heads at the worst possible times. The big push for Elecraft to embrace USB instead of serial comms comes directly to mind... RS232 is well defined and robust. I certainly do not want to be left to the whims of USB driver code with my computer to radio comms. I get enough of this stuff at work to have to deal with it when Im trying to relax on the radio. $200 a year for a $8k software based product is a bit steep for a "hobby" product. Frankly, this fee is very much a high profit margin fee. An ex employer of mine used to charge 20% of the undiscounted price of an entire system on a yearly basis, and this fee was around 30% of the profit for the entire division. They demanded this early on in the product cycle because the product was the only one of the many in the industry that actually worked right. Sadly for them, the competition got better and in about 5 years, that profit completely vaporized. All support costs money; but you have to be reasonable about it. Being in that business myself, reliability is key, not the latest fun thing from some software developer. My new employer (I will join them in July) still runs their broadcast transcode processes using MS Server 2003. Why? Because they know all the bugs in it, and they dont know the bugs in Server 2010 yet. When it has to run 24x7x365, the devil you know is better than the devil you dont know. Windows updates! Larry Phipps, being a broadcast engineer, understands this scary thing. Tell you a quick horror story about Windows Update. A local station in Pittsburgh installed a new whiz-bang automated news production system to automate their newscast production a few years ago. Where they would employ 15 people in the making of this program, now with the "automation", they only needed 5 to do an even fancier show! The system ran on Windows machines. It was installed and worked wonderfully; the customer was very happy. The factory installation engineer (a personal friend of mine) personally turned off all the Windows Update settings on the many machines that comprised this system, and admonished the station engineering folks to leave this feature turned off, which they did. The system ran perfectly for several months until one day, the entire system collapsed, relegating the noon and 5pm newscasts to being performed with news cameras hastily set up in the station parking lot. Upon investigation of the problem by my friend after a hurried trip to the station, it was found that a station IT guy had turned on Windows Update on one of the newsroom computer interface machines. When this machine decided to update itself right before the noon news, it brought the ENTIRE automation system down with it. Moral of the story: Windows Updates can kill you. Lu - w4lt- K3 #3192 ------------------------- Message: 18 Date: Mon, 21 May 2012 19:56:20 -0400 From: Don Wilhelm <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] [OT] Dayton- new hf rigs? To: [email protected] Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed If you want an extended example of the PC implementation of SDR, take a look at LP-PAN. That is an "SDR converter" (for receive only) to take the IF of a receiver and convert it to I/Q signals which can be further processed in a panadapter display on a personal computer. One of the things Larry Phipps emphasizes is that once you get everything working, do NOT allow Windows to update. While supposedly, Windows updates are good for security situations, it is known that such updates will "upset the applecart" with the SDR handling software. I bring this example in to point out the dependency that SDR systems that use a personal computer have on the operating system which can change from day to day. The embedded processor does not have that exposure, and IMHO is much better because it is more stable. The downloadable firmware for the K3 and KX3 definitely put those radios into the SDR arena. I certainly hope Elecraft does not begin to charge $200 a year for firmware (and technical) support. Yes, charging for upgrades within the software community is not unknown, and I do not begrudge Carl N4PY for doing that - he has an excellent product, but $200 a year seem a bit "steep" - Carl charges $35 per year - a big difference. 73, Don W3FPR ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
