In the spirit of the movie Tommy Boy: "That was ------ awesome! ----------- but sorry about your cats and hair though...".
I usually lurk here, but couldn't resist commenting on Wayne's response to an apparent rant. I got my hands on the K3 in Dayton while working in the Elecraft booth. I watched Wayne, Eric, Lyle and many others, tirelessly; give demonstrations of the multiple units in the booth. After spending a few hours with the K3, you can see the hours of "agony" that went into the UI and that like anything new, it just takes a little time to find your way around it. I have a software development background with a lot of UI development, and after talking and listening to Wayne after a few hours, you can tell that this UI has gone through painstaking iterative design. I can assure you that all of the common functions are a button away. Others are only a couple of buttons away. In fact much more functionality is available on the front panel than the K2 and I didn't think the K2 was bad after learning the ropes, so to speak. I'm sure there is no way to satisfy everyone, but I think after spending a little time with this radio, the sharpest critics will begin to see the beauty. And, if there is something more you need, all of the functions have been externalized for software (and some hardware) control so you can roll your own (as I'm sure Simon is doing right now). Besides, if they put everything the K3 can do on a front panel, you would have to put the UI on a panel the size of a wall, and as a short Ham, I would have to resort to a ladder to reach the top buttons :-) Wayne, Eric, Lyle, all at Elecraft, all of the beta testers, and all of the list contributors, keep up the good work. It is VERY evident to me that the K3 is going to be a great product and I am patiently waiting for mine to arrive. And I mean patiently - the delay does not bother me one bit knowing that I'm going to receive your best effort when it hits my door. Besides, I'm still having a great time with my K2 and playing around with some different antennas this summer. Stay the course, get some sleep when you can - can't help you with the hair - I lost all of mine long ago! BTW Wayne - congrats on your son. Hope you get to spend some time with him :-) 73, Dave W8FGU > Charles, > > I'm the principal designer of the K3. I agonized over > size/weight/functionality constraints for a full year, with a lot of > help from twelve very smart colleagues, including my Elecraft > co-founder Eric (WA6HHQ). Dozens of variables were debated. I went > through over 200 iterations of the concept drawing. You could burn my > 2005 phone bill to power a small town. I lost most of my hair, buried > two cats, had a son, and worked until dawn more times than I want to > admit. > > What you see is what you get :) > > 73, > Wayne > N6KR _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net 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
