Don Wilhelm-4 wrote:
>
> I have been following this discussion with casual interest, and I
> observe that we have come "full circle" once again with receiver front
> ends.
>
>
> [snip]
>
> I wonder what is next - It seems to me that we reach a practical limit
> for front end sensitivity when a receiver can hear below the band noise
> - and then BDR, IMD and other parameters become important. It will be
> interesting to see what the next major generation of receiver concepts
> provides. Ain't technology wonderful?
>
>
Technology is wonderful, but I still have an extreme reluctance to adopt any
kind of SDR that is based on general purpose computers. The main reason is
lifespan: most ham radios have a useful life of 20 or 30 years, even if not
in the hands of the original purchaser, and that is considerably longer than
the lifetime of any computer operating system. I would not want to make an
investment in some equipment that would become obsolescent because the
software needed is no longer available to run on current PCs and operating
systems. It would be like the problem we currently have with printers,
scanners etc. that still work but have to be thrown away because there are
no XP or Vista drivers.
Other than that there is the simple fact that general purpose computers are
not as stable as dedicated hardware and you have all the hassle of keeping
them free of viruses etc. It doesn't really matter whether you use Windows
or Linux - having used both I find them equally abominable.
I don't really care what goes on inside the box but I want my radio in a box
marked "radio" with its own independent controls, that works separately from
any computer. So, personally, I hope that SDR will evolve in the direction
of having some dedicated hardware platform that runs the SDR software,
inside the box of the radio - as the K3 does, even if it is not a fully
software defined radio as is being discussed here.
-----
Julian, G4ILO. K2 #392 K3 #222.
http://www.g4ilo.com/ G4ILO's Shack http://www.ham-directory.com/ Ham
Directory http://www.g4ilo.com/kcomm.html KComm for Elecraft K2 and K3
--
View this message in context:
http://n2.nabble.com/K3---ADAT-ADT-200A-by-HB9CBU-tp1597981p1612865.html
Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
_______________________________________________
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
