[Elecraft] Receivers

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

>... I don't see one whit difference in
> sensitivity in modern rigs over my 1951 rig, to my ears. Bet the meters
would
> find it.
> 73 jerry w8gnd

Absolutely right, Jerry, as George, W5YR, points out so well in his post.

As a guy with a lot of high-tech marketing experience, I am always amused to
see that high tech customers think they make decisions based entirely on
hard scientific data. Nonsense. We are as "fashion conscious" as anyone
else. We tend to go with the crowd just like the way most folks choose a new
car or the latest designer jeans. Sure, we 'season' our decisions with some
numbers, but at the root of it we choose what feels good. What has "mojo".

The "fashion" in receiver design has gone through several cycles of gadgets
vs. raw performance since regenerative detectors reached the highest
sensitivity that could be used on the HF bands in the 1920's. A few new
gadgets make the receiver more useful, but most gadgets compromise
performance in some way. So too many gadgets result in a poorer receiver
over all. The engineers are always working to achieve a balance.

The K2 design was purposely a single-conversion affair to provide the best
overall receiver performance even though it meant leaving out some popular
'gadgets' of today such as i-f passband tuning. Those choices were made to
keep the costs within reach of more hams and the performance as good as
possible.

After all, that's what good engineering really is - making choices about
what to include and what to leave out of a design. When I was in school, an
engineer was defined as someone who could do for a dime that which any idiot
could do for a dollar.

Ron AC7AC
K2 # 1289