[Elecraft] Re:"What else can I design for you...."

Wed Apr 30 09:10:00 2003

The NC-300!  THAT was a receiver!  I always aspired to own one when I could
afford it.  Now, technology has changed so much it wouldn't be very useful.
But on your larger point, I think Wayne and Eric have built the foundation
for a bigger business with a broader customer base than the Field Day crowd.
I plan to use my K2/100 only in the shack.  Also, I would like to have a
bigger unit for my bigger hands, and a little NC-300-like "style" would be
great.  If I want mobile, I will build a K1.  But then it's great just to
have a source of really FB kits.

73,
Tom, W6WW

> -----Original Message-----
> From: WQ8Q [mailto:[email protected]]
>
> Now that the door has been opened, some of us in that
> category would like to  see a larger, more stylish,
> full of lights/knobs/buttons  radio that would
> feel comfortable to operate and look good in a dedicated ham
> shack.  It doesn't have to look like the latest CD player, but be
> something a little more substantial looking on the operating desk.

Great points - question is, who's the packaging engineer at
Elecraft? I'm guessing "he" is Wayne and Eric... The big guns
can have all kinds of fancy front panel moldings, LCD matrix
displays, backlit buttons -- it's like a car: you have to make
this year's model look "better" than last year's, regardless of
whether the bill of materials for the powertrain changed one bit.

I grew up starting at the S-meter of a National HRO-50 receiver.
Now, THAT is an S-meter! Beautiful red and yellow, backlit with
black background. When someone mentioned having a bigger K2, even
if it meant lots of empty space, the first rig I thought of was
the National NC-300. I've never owned one, but this is a huge
ham band receiver with a drum slide-rule dial and miniature tubes --
LOTS of empty space inside!

Raymond Loewy, who designed lots of Art Deco style things, did
the Hallicrafters SX-42 and humble S-38 receivers, from what I
remember. But that wasn't exactly a low budget, two-engineer
operation.

The K1 and the K2 look okay to me. At first, I didn't care for the
tactile pushbuttons - it felt like a cheap microwave or something.
But now I like them, maybe even more so than the floppy conductive
rubber style buttons on other modern rigs. The nomenclature on
the front panel is okay -- though I wish there was room for
a bit more, especially for the two-button-press functions like
"AGC OFF" and "WHAT FILTER AM I USING?" - though it is not hard
to remember that. For some reason, I would prefer a "PHONES" label
on the headphone jack. The icon looks incongruous. And did you
notice that the K1 has the Elecraft logo but the K2 doesn't?

The powdercoat paint seems to stand up VERY well.

Ergonomics on the rigs are not terrible. It's obvious that Wayne
and Eric aimed for portability, even though many people would later
use the K2 as a shack-only rig. As a result, the knobs are a bit
small, a bit cramped. I'd be happier if the tuning knob were moved
to the right 1/4 inch, which would keep me from bumping into the
smaller knobs to the left.

A bigger front panel would mean a bigger front panel board, and possibly
a bigger control board... It's not just a matter of making a bigger panel
and strapping in a wiring harness - the switches and pots and connectors
are designed in, so it would mean a respin of all that. What that costs
in actual dollars, I am not sure - but I don't know how many hams
are hanging on for a bigger K2. I doubt it's many, but you can't deny that
if a Yaesu packaging engineer did the K2 over it would be popular.

But as it stands, I think they did a SUPER job on functionality at the
front panel level. SO many things are accessible from the main menu.
I find the above-below labeling for press vs. hold to be handy. (Did Ten-Tec
goof on that with the Argonaut V? It looks confusing to me.) Features
like fast-play, press-and-hold reverse (for checking tx freq activity
in split ops), etc, are real winners.

Coffee hasn't kicked in. I'm rambling. My bottom line is that the K1
and K2 have reasonable ergonomics and appearance, and you can open them
up with only one kind of screwdriver. :-)

Andy
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