The biggest problem with all of this is that different manufacturers
have given different names to the same thing and the same name to
different things. We can talk about "band stacking registers" (no clue
as to what those do even tho' I have them in my Icom rig), "memories,"
etc., until we are blue in the face but the real question is, "what is
the goal of this feature?"
When designing computer networking equipment my customers used to
drive me nuts with requests for various features they had seen in
other products. After much poking and prodding I would usually find
out that it was some feature that someone else had been sold upon by
another vendor. Getting people to tell me what problem they were
trying to actually solve was like pulling teeth. OTOH, once I found
out what problem they were trying to solve, it was usually quite easy
to do that AND incorporate it with something else to make the whole
thing simpler for everyone. So here is my guess at what people are
trying to accomplish.
As I tune across the band I often hear a signal that sounds
interesting, e.g. a station in QSO that I want to go back to or a pile-
up I don't want to try to deal with now, but I don't want to stop
there. I want to keep going. So usually I quickly scribble the
frequency on a piece of paper but lately I have taken to use the VFO A/
B to "remember" the frequency in VFO B while continuing to tune with
VFO A (not much use when working split). So I think what people are
asking for is a way to hit a single button to drop the frequency,
mode, and filter setting in to temporary memory that will remember the
last n (2? 3? 10?) button pushes. Then you can move through these by
pushing some kind of "go-to-previous/go-to-next" button. That way you
can immediately jump back to something you had previously heard. (I
like the idea of a knob myself but a forward/back toggle works too.)
I don't know that I would get all excited about that -- heck, I think
that there are already WAY to many features on most radios and all the
"features" make operation confusing -- but I can imagine someone
wanting to do this, especially during a contest.
So, is this a good problem statement?
--
73 de Brian, WB6RQN
Brian Lloyd - brian HYPHEN wb6rqn AT lloyd DOT com
P.S. -- Pet peeve -- radios with a plethora of computer features but
crappy RF hardware. Now the K3 may be well on the way to the "plethora
of useless features" but at least it has a great RF deck.
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