I am rather late in the first prepay group and requested a K4. I was strongly considering upgrading to the K4D when I got the call that my rig was about ready to ship. Now that the pricing is out, I see that it is a $900 difference. That gives me a bit of pause, not because it isn't worth the price, but because I am not sure my style of operating would justify it.
I would appreciate it if some of you with more experience in such things might be able to give me some insights. Here is my operating information: 1. I am predominantly a CW operator 2. I do enjoy working DX contests, but as a hunt and pounce guy, just looking for countries I may have not worked before. I am not a serious contester trying for points and awards. 3. For non-dx contests, I operate at or near QRP levels to see how well I am getting out on my antennas. 4. I am predominantly a rag chewer on CW, or casual operator for regular CW QSO's. 5. I have two antennas, one a Yagi for 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10 meters. The other is an EFHW for 30 (with tuner) 40 and 80. I am not sure diversity receive would be all that useful with such different antennas. The yagi is useless as a receive antenna on 30, 40, and 80, and the EFHW can receive and transmit on the higher bands, but does not have directionality or gain, and the 40 and 80 meter bands are predominantly for local and US. operations. I think diversity receive might be useful with QSB conditions if I am operating on 20 meters and up and letting the EFHW try to help, but that one advantage would not be worth the difference in price for the K4D, especially with the band conditions we currently have. If I am going to check a different band, I usually just change bands and look at the panadapter to see how active the band is. Not sure having VFO B connected to a different antenna, (like working 20 on the Yagi on A and possibly working 40 on the EFHW on B would gain me much. I would most likely just use VFO A, and change bands. I look forward to your thoughts and what opportunities I might be missing by not getting the K4D. I would guess there are others in this group that would be interested in the responses as they make the same decision. Thanks so much, and 73, Terry, N7TB ______________________________________________________________ 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 Message delivered to [email protected]
