OK, so I'm not the most serious contester in the stable. But I did get a chance to put my K4 through its paces in WPX for the first time, and had a blast.
Even though the "hard" controls of the K4 are very similar to those on the K3 (or K3S), the kinesthetic operating experience is quite different due to its display-centric design. The average "reach" as you manipulate panadapter settings vs. other settings on the radio is cut roughly in half. There's a modest learning curve associated with the three new multifunction controls, given that they're remapped from their counterparts on the K3. But you quickly realize the advantage of persistent parameter labeling. All semantically related operations are efficient; just push the knob briefly to toggle between them. For example, in CW mode the "XMTR" multifunction knob's default assignments are WPM and SPEED, each showing their current settings. The secondary assignments -- DLY (VOX delay) and PTCH (CW sidetone/offset pitch) -- are also displayed, and can be selected as needed. I made things more challenging by using only 10 watts during the contest and sticking with hunt 'n' pounce. (Those who've known me for a long time won't be surprised by this. I love the smell of lightly toasted electrons in the early afternoon.) This forced me to make more extensive use of the radio's panadapter, VFO, and spotting controls: carefully selecting which stations to call, using VFO B as a leapfrog/holding register for the next-most-likely contact, optimally setting up the span and main/sub filter bandwidths, etc. Compared to parking on a frequency and calling CQ, my preferred modus operandi is akin to the visceral experience of driving a stick. Despite my obvious bias as a developer of the radio, I have to say that I really love the radio's display. It's very bright and has an extra-wide viewing angle. It drew in unsuspecting passersby, such as my college-age daughter, who seemed mesmerized by it despite having no clue what I was up to. If we ported Instagram to the internal computer she'd be on the waiting list for sure. With a heavy discount, mind you. I could have made great use of the mini-pan tuning aid and dual-pan configuration, but both are in software dry dock right now as they undergo last minute tweaks. I'll be running them through crunch conditions soon and will report the results here. Field testers, of course, will be weighing in with a lot more data in coming months. Stay tuned.... 73, Wayne N6KR ______________________________________________________________ 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
