The point on Moore's law is taken. But the options aren't just limited to Elecraft doing more work on older radios or no updates at all (or supporting the old radios to the detriment of the new)
Many software development projects now are community based and although radio firmware may be more time-consuming and more complex than OpenWRT for example, community based development may have more umph than Elecraft might have as far as inclination to tweak old radios. Just a thought. On Tue, Nov 24, 2020 at 1:35 AM Jim Brown <j...@audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote: > Tim, > > It's important to realize the the basic K3 was designed in 2007 with > 2007 parts. It should be obvious that technology has advanced by several > orders of magnitude since then (remember Moore's Law?. That fundamental > limitation is a major reason why features that are on lots of wish lists > aren't implemented, and it's a major reason why there's a K4. > > Elecraft is a small company, so they can't afford to build new models as > often as the bigger companies, but the K3 was a very innovative product > that upped the ante for what a great radio should be. For example, it > took ten years for Flex to incorporate the keying waveshaping that the > K3 introduced in 2008, and, as far as I know, they're the only mfr to > have done so (maybe ANAN?). All the other mfrs are using very primitive > (and very clicky) simple RC time constants dating back 70 years! > Elecraft also did some very slick stuff to make their phase noise much > lower than most radios, again, back in that 2007 design. > > And they may be the only mfr to make their radios modular, so we can buy > as much radio as we need, and so that some features can be upgraded by > buying upgraded modules. If you want a new feature or performance > improvement on a JA radio, you have to buy a new radio.It took Yaesu > three generations of their then flagship FT1000-series rigs to fix their > really awful clicks, and their current flagship, the FTDX5000 debuted > with the worst clicks of any of its competitors. They didn't provide a > firmware fix to make the clicks half as bad until I embarrassed them > with my report summarizing ARRL Lab tests; by then the radio was 4-5 > years old! > > 73, Jim K9YC > > On 11/23/2020 10:13 PM, Tim Tucker wrote: > > But > > one thing that the last few years has shown is that Elecraft does not > have > > a great track record of developing new features or technologies into > their > > existing transceiver products. They release updates and patches for > > various issues, and certainly did release new features early on for the > K3, > > but a lot of the ideas the community suggested went unanswered. I > > understand why this is, and hope that it will change with the K4, but > > ultimately the K3, KX3, and KX2 are largely the same product that they > have > > been for the last several years. > > ______________________________________________________________ > 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 tim....@gmail.com > ______________________________________________________________ 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
