[Elecraft] TRANSLATION: K3 Subreceiver Status Update (KRX3 option)

[John Gaynard]

I doubt you'll get any chuckles from the majority of list readers.  Probably
just the opposite.  I do not believe that Wayne's emails need any
translation.

John K8WDN
K3 #157

-----Original Message-----
From: elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Steve Sacco NN4X
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 10:59 AM
To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Elecraft] TRANSLATION: K3 Subreceiver Status Update (KRX3 option)

For fun, I thought I'd provide an "East Coast" translation of this 
recent announcement from Elecraft.

Enjoy!


73,
Steve NN4X
EL98jh




>Message: 38
>Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 10:18:06 -0800
>From: wayne burdick <n6kr at elecraft.com>
>Subject: [Elecraft] K3 Subreceiver Status Update (KRX3 option)
>To: Elecraft Reflector <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
>Message-ID: <6cc130c50266a27a945ae9276b85b9d1 at elecraft.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
>
>I wanted to give those who've ordered a K3 subreceiver a status update.
>First, thanks for your patience; I realize the subreceiver has been
>significantly delayed. (This is also pushing out the DVR. Lyle, KK7P
>and I are collaborating on the PCBs and firmware for both units.)

TRANSLATION: We've been stringing everyone along for, what...9 months 
or so?  We promised that very useful KRX3 option, and we're pretty 
sure that more than a few folks have ordered the K3 based upon the 
existence that option.  THANKS for buying our sales 
puffery!  Unfortunately, we can't manage to bury the truth any 
longer.  Here's the deal: We're nowhere close to being ready on the KRX3.



>When we release a product, it has to meet a number of criteria. Raw
>performance by traditional measures is just one of these. Fortunately
>the subreceiver has met our expectations in this regard, with dynamic
>range virtually identical to that of the main.



TRANSLATION:  blah blah blah blah...this is filler to divert your 
attention...let's hope they take the bait.


>But there are two other requirements that we must meet: excellent
>mutual isolation between the main and receivers, and ease of
>installation. Recently, we made the difficult decision that both must
>be improved.
>
>Isolation between the receivers is critical to usability. For example,
>if you're listening to an extremely strong signal on one receiver, none
>of it should leak into the other's I.F. After extensive testing, we
>concluded that we were close, but needed more isolation.
>
>Regarding installation: Someone with no experience should be able to
>install or remove the subreceiver without much difficulty. The present
>installation process is just a bit too complex once all other modules
>and their associated cables are in place; the left side, chassis
>stiffener, and several cables have to be removed. This has a secondary
>effect, which is to make it very time-consuming to change crystal
>filters on either receiver. We felt that we should improve this now,
>before all fabrications were cast in stone.


TRANSLATION: Our first cut at a design, and the prototypes we've put 
together from that, don't work very well.  We've tried and tried, but 
they just don't.


>Both isolation and installation can be improved with changes to our
>original KRX3 PCB layout. I'm working on this now. Once the PC board
>and shield designs are complete, we'll quickly build first articles and
>run them through all of the tests again.

TRANSLATION: We're doing a major re-design.  Next come the prototypes 
and testing.  No idea when it'll be ready.

>I'm confident that these improvements will allow the subreceiver to
>live up to your expectations as well as ours. We'll post further
>updates as we make progress.

TRANSLATION: We hope you'll latch onto this part of the spin, and not 
think about how we've (once again) made promises we couldn't keep, 
and didn't let you know until we couldn't explain it away anymore.

>(I know, I know -- "Stop rambling and get back to work!")

TRANSLATION: Let's hope the cute signoff will take the edge off of 
any anger that we haven't managed to nullify with the earlier part of 
the announcement.



  _.    _.   ...._   _.._   nn4x at embarqmail.com



_______________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Post to: Elecraft at mailman.qth.net
You must be a subscriber to post to the list.
Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.):
 http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft    

Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm
Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com