I have looked at the K2 and other offerings from that company and while they do have some nice numbers, the rigs are extremely expensive by the time you get everything installed. Even connecting up digital requires yet another expensive option that would be standard on any other rig.
Not to mention you would build it yourself or have someone else build it. And they are not all that ergonomic either, with small controls and menus. The one thing that I most look for in a rig is the main tuning knob. Is it solid, well balanced, comfortable for extended use, etc.? The K2's tuning knob looks very poor and I have heard complaints from some as well. I happen to do a lot of SWLing, just like I did in the late 50's when I built my first 3 tube Knight Kit:) . Spending a few hours twiddling the tuning for a contest or for causal tuning around causes one to value that feature. That is what sold me on the 756 Pro series after using one for Field Day a few years ago. Have used a 7800 too for FD and it is a nice rig, but not the kind of rig that I personally would buy. To extend the metaphor, I would stick with Nikon or Canon (ICOM or Yaesu) and maybe not consider Pentax. HI HI. If I wanted the ultimate rig for HF digital, it would almost have to be the Orion. I have the ICOM 756 Pro 2 and find that to be quite well designed. No surprises, no odd behaviors, no unfinished tweaking, ergonomically pretty good and it has the superb continuously operating spectrum scope that only ICOM has been able to do well, even much better than the Orion. But the receiver specs are not that great in the 756 series with a close in IMD DR of about 75 dB @ 2 KHz, compared with the unbelievable 90 + dB of the Orion which is far superior to any other rig including the Yaesu FT9000 series and ICOM 7800. But do you really need this kind of superior receiver? Most of us don't. Other factors have to be factored in as well. 73, Rick, KV9U Leigh L Klotz, Jr. wrote: >As they used to say about Leica, get a K2 for backup so when one of your >rigs breaks you can use the K2... >Leigh/WA5ZNU > > > >
