Since these were most of my ideas, I will agree :) and add a few comments.
Gary Schmidt W5ZL wrote:
Phil,
I think this is moving in the right direction. It's long been my
opinion that we could eliminate a LOT of buttons and free up a fair
bit of real estate to allow for oft-used functions to come to the
front panel. Here is a list of my suggestions:
Adopt the Icom paradigm of one soft key toggling through multiple
variants of one general function, to wit:
· Press the “USB” button and it toggles to LSB
Yes. We may want to have some sort of small "button" that, when toggled,
puts the current band and mode displays over the panadapter, but a
simpler default operating mode would, in most cases, suffice.
· Press it again and it returns to USB
And, if you right click, it goes in the opposite direction. Not so
important here with two choices, but just about all of the simplified
iCom style buttons should do that.
For instance, why not have (on the simple display) a button named "Band"
and then write the numbers (80, 160, 17, 432) as required. Here, right
click "going the other direction" makes sense. The current behavior
could be triggered by the aforementioned button that enabled a full
display to be visible -- until the small button was toggled again -- on
the panadapter region.
We can also take most of the buttons on the left side of the display
(PWR, SQL, MIC, etc.) and have them controlled by another button.
· I’d suggest the same multi-press approach to AM/SAM and to the
various supported digital modes – I can’t think of any good reason to
have all those modes displayed simultaneously.
Quite so. With the same "backwards" behavior. That way, we can have an
"ordered list" and so it isn't so important if we have a few less
popular modes
· The DSB button should be eliminated altogether. I doubt anyone
intentionally operates DSB in this day and age. You could always allow
it to be restored to the console via a preference selection in the
setup menu.
See the above. I hate options. If we had the left button / right button
behavior, DSB could simply be last in the list and, probably, seldom
reached. The order would be USB, LSB, SAM, AM, DRM, and DSB. Most of the
time we'd toggle between LSB and USB.
· Memories, both CW and voice, should be keyable from the front panel
or (better yet) from Function keys WITHOUT having to have any other
menu up. For example, when I hit F2 when I’m in CW mode I want the SDR
to key the transmitter MOX and send the contents of that register,
then return the radio to RX. Bang. Same with voice memories when in
SSB mode.
Maybe have both. In addition to function keys, why not have a MR number
that can be toggled back and forth as I suggest. As with the band
switch, it would be augmented (here, by having a few characters of text
added -- a user label in the case of voice memory -- actual characters
for RTTY/PSK and CW. And, more memories for this stuff. About 10
memories would be good enough. The orignal CW display could be used for
digital and voice (label for the voice one, actual text for the others)
with the ability to toggle between 1 and 6, 2 and 7, . . .5 and 10.
Thus, in the main display, the current memory is visible. In the
extended (current) display, the active five of the ten total would be in
view at any one moment.
Just my $0.02.
Gary W5ZL
Plus mine.
I also think the whole scanner interface needs a little work. At the
least, it should be one of those "toggles over the panadapter and is out
of sight except for a small button" types. When you're using it, it's
important. When you're not, it is a complete waste of space. Also "high"
should become "offset" and drag-and-drop from the VFOs into "low" should
work. The channel/frequency thing should simply disappear. I assume
"channel" is for 60 meters? Why not simply have it scan that way on that
band and by "step" everywhere else? Just grey out "step" when "channel"
makes sense. And, channel is not the default I want. The "low" value
should increment so that we can easily do a pause-and-resume function
(with my "offset" idea, it would reset the upper bound, but that's
really not a big deal in the end).
Finally, why have two types of time? We might toggle between local and
UTC (by clicking on the time value or the date value). Saves some space.
This would also almost automatically remove a pet-peeve of mine, too.
The date is _always_ local, which means I have to remember that it is
wrong all evening here in the US. My first order logging is, believe it
or not, still by paper. Bet I'm not alone (I only put the interesting
stuff in the machine). Meanwhile, I have a computer -- why should I have
to think about stuff like that? I should just look at the display and
write it down.
Larry WO0Z
