[Elecraft] K3 and its future external panadapter

[wayne burdick]

Sometime in the future (give us at least six months!) we'll be offering 
a very high-performance panadapter for the K3. Let's call it a "P3" for 
now. The P3 will work with any radio that has an I.F. tap, but it will 
be styled to match the K3. We're thinking 2/3rds of the K3's width, but 
the same height and depth. It may have a speaker and/or 20 A power 
supply. Your input on this would be very welcome.

Early on in the K3 design process, we decided not to include an 
*internal* panadapter. Here's our reasoning:

  - A panadapter takes up a *lot* of front-panel real-estate. So, if you 
want to
    keep the radio at compact desktop size, you have to displace a lot 
of controls.
    The displaced controls end up buried in menus or "soft keys," making 
basic
    radio operation much more difficult. The K3 has a menu for things 
rarely used,
    but since there's no huge display, we were able to put every 
often-used control
    at your fingertips, optimally placed with respect to the LCD. A good 
example
    is our filter passband graphic, which is centered directly above the 
DSP controls.

  - An internal panadapter adds a lot of cost. Many customers, we felt, 
would
    rather have such cost be optional. If you want a panadapter, you'll 
be able
    get our P3 and set it beside the rig. Then, if you want to grab your 
K3 and head
    for the hills, you can optionally leave the panadapter on the desk 
(along with
    its speaker and power supply).

  - Internal panadapters often have severe performance compromises. 
There's at least one
    very new radio on the market with a panadapter that takes over the 
rig during sweeps.
    Many of them are sluggish or have user-interface issues due to lack 
of panel space.
    Our external panadapter will be an entirely independent unit, so it 
will not interfere
    with radio use at all, either operationally or due to overloading of 
controls.
    That said, it will be highly integrated with, and controlled by, the 
K3 (or
    attached computer).

  - We may use a display technology that offers faster rewrite speeds 
than you can get
    in an inexpensive graphic LCD such as the type most often used for 
internal panadapters.
    With the panadapter in a separate enclosure, we'll be able to use 
very fast logic,
    and possibly an exotic display such as an OLED (organic LED), 
without incurring
    any RFI problems.

73,
Wayne


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