Hear, hear! Julian, I just joined up with MARS - our Military Auxiliary Radio System in the US. One of the objectives I have (now, reinforced by MARS) is to be able to pack up the station and go where needed. Of course this also applies to contesting, mobile ops, emergencies, etc.
A standalone rig is vital to the objective above. And not having to do more than plug in cables is equally important, because it seems like set up time may be short. So far, I've been able to tear down the station and set it up after travel in record time. Something less than 30 minutes at each end, neglecting far-end antenna set up time. Simply put, I've never been so pleased with a 10 pound box in my life. That Elecraft slogan, "You can take it with you", to me, has become almost everything of importance. [True, this is a recent development...] All of the station fits into a large gym bag, plus a Pelican-like carry case. All of it, even stuff for data modes. It's also important for this type of operation to not have a PC or any similarly complicated piece of equipment get in the way of operating once the station is set up. I've never had to wait long for the K3 to boot up, it's never blue-screened on me, and it doesn't scream at me for security updates. That is a tactical advantage that no PC-based solution could ever provide. I'm not trying to say that Flex (or whatever competition the K3 has) is not a good solution. It may be for a different setting, or the designers had different goals, etc. But if your interests run to portable operation, quick set ups and tear downs, and so on, the K3 is a better choice. Just my thoughts on the subject. I have no financial relationship with Elecraft, except the part where I pay them for new bits on K3 #24. 73, matt W6NIA >I found it rather amusing that the bulk of this post, many paragraphs, >contained a description of setting up a Flex station for portable use. It >involved installing the .Net framework, installing drivers, configuring >buffers, recalibrating the radio, installing a virtual audio cable and >virtual serial port. Someone using a K3 would probably have got 200 contacts >in the log by that point. I don't think it was intentional, but to me he >just made the case for why so many of us prefer the Elecraft approach. > >----- >Julian, G4ILO ______________________________________________________________ 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
