I respectfully offer that it's a very good thing Elecraft used a commonly found connector in their radio designs. One bane of technology is when manufacturers use a myriad of proprietary connections. The huge advantage that we have in using common connections is the availability of plugs, sockets, and cables. The responsibility we have is to always ensure the connections are as intended. In the case of Elecraft radios with a DB9 connection we CAN use an RS-232 spec cable from the rig to our computer with the requirement that certain pins or wires be removed/cut/disconnected due to the nature of the connection. The Beauty of RS-232 is that it's a 3 wire system. The other connections are typically used for HARDWARE support (DTS/RTS) and aren't required for RS-232. So out of a DB9 connection we are left with 6 usable lines. What's a better design, combining purposes into a common connection where the consumers are technically skilled and educated, or having 10 extra connections on the back?
If you were homebrewing the radio how would you build it? I'm betting that most of us would use single connectors and bundle the functions/features there. It just makes more sense. One thing that may help would be to label a warning on the connector if you may tend to forget that it's not a modem connection, rather, it's a multi-function DB9 connection. Just my opinion. Jerry Moore ______________________________________________________________ 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
