[Elecraft] Concern

[Brian Lloyd]

> The K2 manual on page 6 states that "Other CW and SSB fixed crystal  
> filter
> options may be available." It would be nice to have more fixed  
> crystal filter
> options available. I would like to be able to add a 1.8 KHz fixed  
> crystal
> filter. Yes, the variable CW filter can be set to that bandwidth,  
> but it has
> considerable ripple at 1.8 KHz.

OK, yeah, the ripple is pretty bad. Sounds weird but, you know, it  
seems to have the ripple set just right to really pull a voice out of  
the mush. That ripply 1.8KHz filter is amazing! OTOH, the SSB filter  
is really nice and when you crank the variable filter down to 1KHz or  
less it is quite nice too.

> The noise blanker and VOX could be greatly improved. In the past  
> there were
> discussions that a high performance noise blanker could be  
> developed. The
> downside was that it would use mostly SMD components and not be in  
> step with
> the through-hole design philosophy of the K2. Most people were  
> willing to
> accept the deviation from the philosophy for the added performance.

There are a lot of people building SMD stuff. The SoftRock boards have  
a lot of people doing SMD work. I had a workshop at the school for the  
kids to learn to do SMD soldering. They like it more than through- 
hole. We are talking 5th-graders here. If they can do it, you can too.  
I now have 5 SoftRock V6.2 RxTx 80/40 RxTx boards and 5 SoftRock Lite  
V6.2 40M boards in various stages of construction in the classroom.

> Flatter 160 meter bandpass filter characteristics, less harmonics in  
> the
> sidetone, or built in digital mode interfaces are more examples.

Is the sidetone really an issue?

> Also many of us have done considerable mods on our K2's, but we are  
> limited by
> the firmware. With active firmware development more mods could be  
> supported.

I think this is a key point. Open the K2 firmware for others to do  
development on it would be a great thing.

Brian Lloyd
Granite Bay Montessori School          9330 Sierra College Bl
brian AT gbmontessori DOT com          Roseville, CA 95661
+1.916.367.2131 (voice)                +1.791.912.8170 (fax)

PGP key ID:          12095C52A32A1B6C
PGP key fingerprint: 3B1D BA11 4913 3254 B6E0  CC09 1209 5C52 A32A 1B6C




Brian Lloyd
Granite Bay Montessori School          9330 Sierra College Bl
brian AT gbmontessori DOT com          Roseville, CA 95661
+1.916.367.2131 (voice)                +1.791.912.8170 (fax)

PGP key ID:          12095C52A32A1B6C
PGP key fingerprint: 3B1D BA11 4913 3254 B6E0  CC09 1209 5C52 A32A 1B6C