D J wrote:
>
> Unfortunately the K3 firmware seems to have wandered off track a bit,
> two years ago when the K3 started rolling out the following were on the
> "to do" list and formed part of the specification:
>
> 0.5 ppm TCXO calibration
> Synchronous AM
>
> These might not be the most important issues in the world, but were
> included in the original specification and are in the Oct 24th 2007 "B1
> manual". Currently the K3 fails to meet specification!
>
> Can we have some indication of their position on the firmware roadmap?
>
>
You've been reading my blog, Dave! Or the review I posted yesterday on eHam.
Whilst I agree with what you say, I think there are two other issues that
need to be addressed which relate to the K3 not working in a way that users
would expect (the way every other competitive radio does) which for some
people may be considered even more important.
One is the simple - from the user's perspective, I appreciate not so simple
for the firmware developer - matter of disabling equalization when DATA mode
is used. I've been browsing online manuals of radios from Yaesu, Kenwood and
Icom and they all do that. Until the K3 also does, those of us who use data
modes a lot will continue to have to leave equalization flat unless we want
to fiddle about setting / unsetting it whenever we change modes.
The other issue is the way the memories work, which I believe that anyone
using the K3 for FM - as I expect more people will want to do when XV144's
get out in the field - will consider to be not good enough. The "channel
hopping" memories were a lame step in the right direction but their major
flaw is that they only load the receive frequency into the VFO. This is fine
for scanning, but if you have a mixture of simplex and repeater channels in
memories with different access tones you can't just press PTT and reply to
the signal you heard while scanning because the repeater shift and access
tone associated with the memory you're listening to have not been loaded, so
you may well be transmitting on the wrong frequency and/or with the wrong
access tone.
Once all these issues have been addressed I believe that the K3 may finally
be able to lay claim to being the class-leading radio that we all hoped it
would be.
-----
Julian, G4ILO. K2 #392 K3 #222.
* G4ILO's Shack - http://www.g4ilo.com
* KComm - http://www.g4ilo.com/kcomm.html
* KTune - http://www.g4ilo.com/ktune.html
--
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http://n2.nabble.com/K3-firmware-2-years-on-and-still-much-to-do-tp3674523p3674724.html
Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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