[Elecraft] K3 Band button suggestion

[Steve Ellington]

Don:
Most rigs nowadays have "band stacking registers". The band selection keypad 
has a button for each band. Each button is capable of remembering at least 3 
frequencies per band. Programming these buttons is automatic.
When we switch between bands, the rig remembers the last frequency we used. 
Let's assume I was on 40 meters at 7250 khz yesterday but today I switched 
to 20 meters. When I push the 40m button, I'll land on 7250 Khz again. Later 
I tune down to the cw band, 7016 Khz, listen a while then jump back to 20M. 
Now we have 2 frequencies stored for 40 meters, one for phone and the other 
for cw. If I push the 40m button again, I'll land on 7015, push it a second 
time and I land on 7250. Eventually all bands that I used will have 3 of my 
favorite frequencies stored simply just by me operating and making no 
particular effort to program the buttons.
TenTec, Kenwood, ICOM, virtually all rigs work this way.
I've tried programming the M1, M2 etc. buttons but sooner or later I hit the 
wrong button and the whole things is screwed up. It's just not intuitive as 
having registers. Since the K3 doesn't have individual band buttons, there's 
not much you can do about it. That's why I suggested that a separate button 
be designated as the band stacking register button for whatever band you 
happen to be using. Simply push that button 3 times and you get 3 different 
frequencies that you have used in the past. How, you ask, did we program 
these frequencies....Well every time you change bands, the last frequency 
used is stored in that particular registry. When you go back to that band, 
that frequency will pop up first but the last 2 frequencies will be 
available by a push of the button.
Hope this makes sense! I'm sure Elecraft is tired of hearing about this but 
lack of this feature is a very common complaint on an otherwise perfect rig. 
Maybe the new panadpter will have these buttons!
73
Steve Ellington
N4LQ at carolina.rr.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Wilhelm" <w3fpr at embarqmail.com>
To: <Elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Saturday, April 04, 2009 11:49 PM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K3 Band button suggestion


> Steve (or anyone else who knows),
>
> Please explain the convenience of "band-stacking" memories.  I have
> never used a radio with "band-stacking" memories, so I really don't know
> what that means.
> Is it really a 'stack' (as in programming) where one can only select the
> item at the top of the  stack?
> If it is something different, then the term "band-stacking" should not
> be used IMHO - I think it was Yaesu that first popularized the term and
> I have been confused ever since.
>
> The K3 provides 4 random access memories for each band in the M1-M4
> buttons, and you say you want only 3, so you may use only M1-M3 if you
> so choose.
>
> Yes, it does take a  2 button tap to retrieve the contents of any of the
> M1-M4 memories, but if band-sacking memories can only retrieve the
> topmost memory with any one tap, the average number of button taps
> required to retrieve the desired memory with a stack depth of 3 is also
> two taps.
>
> So please tell me that "band-stacking" is something different than a
> "stack" as used in programming, and I will give up my argument and go
> off on another tangent about the ills of mis-named functions on a radio.
>
> 73,
> Don W3FPR
>
> Steve Ellington wrote:
>> Since we can't have band stacking and memories are too much trouble, how
>> about designating one seldom used button of our choice to be the band
>> stacking button. Example: We scroll to 40 meters with the usual band 
>> button
>> then once we are on 40m, we can use that designated button to scroll 
>> through
>> pre-programmed locations across the band such as CW, SSB, Digital etc. 3
>> spots would be plenty. To me, this seems like a good compromise. In my 
>> case,
>> I would chose to designate the "SUB" button since I don't have the sub
>> receiver or maybe the RATE button since I seldom need it. Anything would 
>> be
>> better than using those memories!
>> Steve  N4LQ
>> N4LQ at carolina.rr.com
>>
>>
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