Controls: There are some people for whom everything ought to be controlled from a general purpose computer, but I think most Elecrafters agree that "real knobs" are better, and Elecraft has done a superb job in judging what variables are deserving of the real knob approach. There will always be things that can be relegated to menus, but to think that touch screens would make it acceptable to hide more adjustments in menus would be a mistake. Lots of people seem to find that the IC-7300 menus are a big pain.
Display size: There are good reasons not to make the display bigger: * I appreciate the modest size and weight of the current K3(s). A bigger display would require a bigger front panel. * As others have said: unneeded clutter is distracting. Revealing personal deficiencies is not pleasant, but I cannot resist. At my age I more and more experience situations like the following. I go into the kitchen to get a pair of scissors that reside on the countertop. The scissors have bright orange handles, and are the only object with such color. The countertop also has a number of knives and other kitchen implements on it. I stare but don't immediately find the scissors. Or I may be reading a newspaper when I am interrupted by a phone call. Years ago, after the phone call my focus goes back to the paper, and magically, without effort, my eyes would go immediately to the paragraph and sentence where I had left off. Somehow, subconsciously, my brain had recorded information about the surrounding text and so also recorded exactly where I left off. That rarely happens any more, so I end up spending time searching for where I was. We don't want that to happen as our gaze moves back and forth between the radio display and the contest computer screen, or even when looking back and forth between different items on the radio screen. Another example is reading world news on the web. It has become very popular to present news items as a two-dimensional clutter of images, each of which represents a news item. It makes me confused about which of the items I have already looked at. So much better to see a one-dimensional bullet list. Yes, the existing K3 display can also be perceived as a confusing clutter, even if one is familiar with the displayed items. I would not want to lose any of the displayed items though. I do wish some of the front panel hardware buttons had different colors. After a decade of using the K3, I still have to read the labels on the BAND, MODE and POWER buttons to make sure I push the right one. Display content: It is very helpful to find the same information in the same places over the long term. Software developers (I used to be one) like to be able to create "a new fresh look" every now and then. The fixed format of the K3(s) LCD is wonderful for preventing such abuse. Nevertheless, I would consider it an improvement to use a dot-matrix display that can be changed, as long as that freedom is not used often. The selectivity graphics could be improved. There could be more specific informaton about the new preamp settings. Integration between radio and amplifier, while good today, could go even further. When we are used to press a single button to run the ATU for a new frequency, do we have to use more than one button after the amplifier with its ATU is added? (Yeah, I know you don't really have to do that every day if you rely on the memories, but that is beside the point.) It would be nice if the radio display could show the amplifier output power. Etc. Achieving better integration would probably require hardware changes beyond the display screen, but when we are talking about changing the display we are already talking about hardware changes in a new model radio. Do I mean to say that the current display provides all the information we need? Absolutely not, but the radio is made to suit a wide variety of use cases. As others have said, a PC display can provide additonal information, and it can be tailored to be optimal for a specific purpose, such as contesting. Trying to provide all the information for all types of use on a single screen is a recipe for hopeless clutter. Configurability is a nice idea, but I wouldn't personally want to spend the time to use it for most things. Life is too short to keep reinventing the wheel that others have spent many hours on, and then save and backup my personal choices, especially for the basic display items that most everyone needs. Having the spectrum on a separate device such as the P3 is to me a positive, as the very different look of the screen helps the brain go to the correct screen without thinking, while avoiding having to search among many items on a given screen. That said, the separate spectrum screen could be even more useful by showing more spectrum-related information, including even spots from an external program such as a contest logger. Display color: Adding color to the radio display could be useful in helping the eye find and return to specific items. However the implementer would have to be very careful, as many people are to some degree color blind, and the worst case is where a display item would look too dim to an affected individual. I believe my vision is normal, but many times I run across a web page using a lot of deep blue text that seems so dark as to be almost unreadable. I would not be surprised if some buyers of currently available radios with colorful displays find some particular colors annoying. Maybe color is one case where configurability would make sense: Use knob to move through all display fields, and for the currently highlighted field let the user rotate through a number of possible color selections. 73, Erik K7TV -----Original Message----- From: elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net [mailto:elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Matthew Cook Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2017 8:10 PM To: lromer...@tampabay.rr.com Cc: Elecraft Reflector <elecraft@mailman.qth.net> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K3 Display is Dated... Good to see this functionality being added to N1MM, with luck some of the SDR developers will pick this up and it can be implemented externally to the K-line. To be honest for situational awareness during a contest having a 24" monitor with 2.5M or more pixels (or larger) above the desk fed with an SDR that's sitting in the RX Loop of the K3 monitoring the entire HF band (>300kHz) gives you both the resolution bandwidth AND video bandwidth necessary to process this information. I've seen a similar concept in one of the Mac based loggers (MacLoggerDX?) where spots are placed across a pseudo frequency dial, it doesn't take long on a low res screen for it to become unreadable and unusable. The additional info from N1MM on top of a waterfall display will make this all the better for search and pounce contest operation. This feature is one of the situations where size does matter. 73 Matthew VK5ZM On 31 May 2017 at 11:28, Luis V. Romero <lromer...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote: > I completely agree with Ken K6MR! > > I rarely, if ever, touch the radio. I sometimes twirl the main VFO > knobs, but frankly, out of habit. > > 90% of my interface is via the computer keyboard (N1MMLogger +. Oh, > yes, I'm one of those "Durn Contesters!"). > > But there are very interesting things on the horizon. > > I had a very long talk with Tom Wagner, N1MM at the Dayton Contest > Suite Friday night while Spurious Emissions played in the other room. > He showed me his new Logger feature: I call it "Active Bandmap". It's > a bandmap window that integrates live information from an Icom 7300 > spectrum display and the spotting network data and displays it, > dynamically, right on the logger screen. It integrates spots, signal > strength and labels the pips with the callsign from spot data. > > I have a friend with a 7300 and will start playing with this feature > next week (I have a repeater to install this week <sigh>). > > This, folks, is what I attempt to do on my P3 display (I do not have > the VGA option, it doesn't do much for me). Marker A. Twist the P3 > knob. Drop Marker A on a pip. Push the knob in. Call the station. > Repeat. But don't do it as much as I want to as it takes my hands off > the keyboard. > > I have *ALWAYS* wanted to be able to do this right on the N1MMLogger > screen, under N1MMLogger *KEYBOARD* control (Shift Up Arrow/Shift Down > Arrow. I'm not much of a mouser.). Tom has implemented the > functionality EXACTLY as I envisioned it. But it currently works only > on an Icom 7300 and, in the future, other similar Icom transceivers. > (Yes, I know Flex rigs can do > this: > No I don't think their receivers and Maestro's touch screen workflow > are not up to the challenge. yet.) > > I am aware that details towards the implementation of this > functionality has been made known to Elecraft. Tom basically has > developed an "API" that defines how to format serial data to create a > similar display from any modern Panadaptor display equipped > transceiver with serial or "faux" serial over USB communications > capability. > > I would recommend that the contest ops among us (and others who like > this kind of stuff) investigate this functionality in N1MMLogger + and > see how it may improve your Search and Pounce workflow efficiency. > > I also *strongly* encourage Wayne and Eric and the Elecraft Product > Managers to start down the road of implementing this functionality > before Icom/Somebody else comes out with a radio that challenges K3's > performance capability. > > 73 > > Lu Romero - W4LT > Tampa, FL > > ______________________________________________________________ > 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 > vk...@bistre.net > ______________________________________________________________ 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 ebasil...@cox.net ______________________________________________________________ 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
