I visited the Elecraft booth at the Visalia DX Convention to thank Wayne and Eric for the most fun I'd had in radio for years (building my KX1 and K2), to compliment them on their support staff, and check out the new K3.
I noticed that they were tuning around the 40 meter CW band and finding lots of signals. How do you do that, I asked = not the sort of activity one would expect on 40 meters that time of day or at this point of the sunspot cycle and no antenna. Eric and Wayne were using an MP3 player and a "Time Machine" by Expanded Spectrum Systems http://www.expandedspectrumsystems.com/prod2.html Essentially they've recorded a swath of 80 KHz of the 40 meter band through this device onto an MP3 player, and the same device plays it back as it was recorded - a a 80 KHz swath of the 40 meter CW band full of signals. Although the Time Machine isn't an Elecraft offering, it is certainly an intriguing device. Maybe I can record a CW sprint contest or CQWW CW for an few hours and have it around for demo and practice purposes. Both Wayne and Eric were clearly and justifiably excited about this product, and the buzz around the booth was very positive. There is a lot of depth in the firmware, a custom display that shows things like the bandwidth shape, CW and RTTY decode (maybe also PSK31, I just don't remember what was said), and you can even send RTTY without an external computer keyboard by forming characters with the paddle in Morse code! I ordered a K3, and I'm really looking forward to using it for the upcoming contest season. Dick, K6KR _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
