[Elecraft] SDR - K3 - and GUI Interface

[Lee Buller]

  Brian Lloyd and others have claimed that if you had an SDR radio with knobs and switches you would have a K3.  Yes, to a certain extent that is true...but the K3 and SDR radio as developed by Flex Radio are two different radios because of the technology used.
   
  I won't bore you with the details....but I would recommend everyone read the four part series on the idea of detection on the SDR-1000.  Now, I am not championing the Flex Radio stuff, but the technology is rather forward thinking.  I find it very educational.
   
  Yes, both radios use mixing and signal injection, but that is where things change.  The technlogy for Flex Radio (I do not want to call it an SDR Radio because the technology they use for detection could be used in a tradition radio) is different that most radios.  I do not want to call it unique because I am not sure that it is one of a kind.
   
  We need to make the distinction of what we are talking about here.  Yes, the K3 can be defined as an SDR as well as the K2, the 756PROs, and a host of other rigs that use microprocessors.  But, in the whole....I would venture to say that the Flex Radio system uses a totally different approach to detection and should be defined by its internal technology as well as its software guts...which is then delivered to the user through its GUI interface.
   
  We need to hone the definition of a SDR radio.
  We need to hone the definition of User Interface
  We need to look under the hood to see the technology and how that impacts performance
   
  Just some thoughts rumbling around the cavity....
   
  Lee - K0WA
   
   


In our day and age it seems that Common Sense is in short supply.  If you don't have any Common Sense - get some Common Sense and use it.  If you can't find any Common Sense, ask for help from somebody who has some Common Sense.  Is Common Sense devine?