You have a LOT of company Paolo! In recent years I have the feeling I have two quite different avocations. One involves state-of-the-art, computer-controlled and software-defined radios with all the "bells and whistles" that I can either operate or agonize over whether the performance is within 0.0001 dB of being the best in the world. Then there's my other hobby that involves throwing a switch and waiting a bit for the filaments to reach operating temperature on equipment I can operate if as long as I know how to adjust a panel filled with knobs needed to get clean RF into the "aether": frequency, grid drive, plate tuning, etc., and, of course, I have to receive using filters in my head to suppress noise and hear through the other signals in the bandpass.
But, somehow, that's often far more fun and satisfying to do than have a gang of cantankerous microprocessors and controllers doing it for me all hidden behind a sleek new front panel with glowing liquid crystal displays! In the same way I sometimes set aside this computer and sit down at my drawing table with slide rule in hand and work out a circuit with pencil and paper rather than run a SPICE simulator. Somehow that's more satisfying in a sort of rough, hands-on way, too. One bit of good news though. The worlds do overlap, just like intersecting sets on a Venn diagram. My half-century old Bug and J-38 straight key work quite well with the K3 or the K2, as well as on gear their own age, just as some phone operators have discovered that half-century old Astatic D-104 mic sounds great on a K3. And, truth to tell, I seldom engage a filter narrower than 2 kHz even when operating CW so I can enjoy doing the copying instead of letting the radio do it for me. Still, I admit I have turned on the CW decode display on the K3: Gee...look at that. And felt the smug satisfaction that I can still copy perfectly when it stumbles, especially when working a fellow Ham using a manual key. The K2 or K3 doesn't take up the space, weigh as much and can do a decent job of simulating the sort of performance we got from the old gear. That's handy at times. Ron (Proud to be another Dinosaur in the "modern" Age) AC7AC -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paolo Gramigna Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 7:34 AM To: elecraft@mailman.qth.net Subject: R: R: [Elecraft] K3-Latest K3 Review on EHAM Quote---------------------- Not that I know what a Drake S line is but strange you could work VP6DX with it. From reading this list I have got the impression that to work VP6DX you indeed need a Elecraft K3 radio. ----------------------- Pardon me for the typo. It was, quite obviously, a Drake C line of 1979 vintage. An I worked them on CW using a Vibroplex-like Vizkey bug handmade by Tom, K4VIZ and modeled after a design produced by the late John Marachini Merrick, VE3AUB/VE3AWA. No paddle, no keyer, no DSP, no computer-controlled rig, no packet cluster, nothing besides a few vacuum tubes, a bug and a 1/4 vertical. And oh boy, how I liked that QSO! But anyway, after building a KX1 (worked all Europe while hiking, on AA batteries) and a K2 (worked all the continents with a string of wire up on a tree, on internal batteries) I decided to sell my Icom 781; and my K3 is on his way right now. I still like the smell and warmth of my vacuum tubes (Real Radios Glow In The Dark!) but I'll like to finally own a rig, whose receiver will finally beat my vintage, perfectly calibrated R-390A (a late EAC production). And I don't care a dime for the "punch" of the speech processor; first of all, I work 99,9% on CW (when I want to go SSB I have to ask a friend to lend me a microphone, since I don't own any) and second because I don't want a Robocop voice; mine is already bad enough. Cheers, Paolo IK4YNG _______________________________________________ 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
