[Elecraft] ADT-200A Fully DSP transceiver

[Paul Christensen]

> "The ADAT appears to be a finished product,  all its core features have 
> been delivered with excellent styling and  engineering."

The ADT-200A's core architecture is complete, leaving room for a 
considerable amount of future upgrades.  The unit includes an Ethernet port 
for a web server, in addition to a USB port, and a plethora of other 
connectivity.

In many respects, the ADT-200A is very much at a stage where the K3 was at 
the time of its product launch.  For example, the K3 did not have true 
diversity at first, and yet many folks went ahead and made the purchase 
anyway (myself included), realizing that it would come -- and it did. 
Neither the K3, nor the ADT-200A will ever be "complete" products.  But 
that's a positive attribute since the designs can evolve as consumer demand 
changes.  The same is true of the Flex series.

> "I dont know how so many can be so critical of this well designed radio."

I do not see the comments here as being negatively critical of the ADT-200A. 
Without knowledge of the the tranceiver's capabilities, there's a tendency 
to be skeptical.  Nothing wrong with that.

>" It has a perfect receiver, transmitter, S-meter, CW keying sidebands and 
>probably the worlds best IMD performance from a transmitter. It really 
>delivers a knockout blows against the K3. These several  key feature 
>advantages over the K3 would be attractive to more operators than few Db in 
>receiver performance. If Ulrich Rhode N1UL owns one, it says a lot about 
>the radios design excellence!"

My purchase of the ADT-200A was based largely on Ulrich Rhode's comments. 
The ADT-200A does not have a perfect receiver.  It's a different kind of 
receiver.  As technology allows for nearly Herculean receiver performance, 
it becomes more difficult to classify one type as being "better" than 
another.  That largely depends on what measurement category is most useful 
to the individual operator (e.g., close-in DR, phase noise, Tx IMD, etc).

> "Anyway if I had to choose today between buying a K3 or an ADAT I would 
> probably buy the ADAT, which I only found out about  from reading this 
> list! I dont see how the K3 could be improved  to feature match the ADAT, 
> it would take a new design from Elecraft."

Careful!  The ADT-200A users a basic front panel user interface with many 
menus.  I suspect that contesters may not like it without use of a software 
control program.

I have no intention of selling my K3.  Both the K3 and ADT-200A are unique 
for the attributes they offer.  That said, I would really like to see 
Elecraft design their own rendition of a direct-RF-sampled transceiver as 
just another product in their mix.  I would like to see a black box design 
with a built-in web server, use of interchangeable front panels sizes for 
portable and base station use, and implementation of adaptive 
pre-distortion.

Paul, W9AC