[Elecraft] disabled controls during TX

[Guy Olinger K2AV]

I agree, the K3 certainly does have more RX things locked while
transmitting than my MP,  but the MP had some as well.

I seem to recall that this is also true of other software defined
radios like Flex, but others can comment on that.  All of the K3
controls are effectively encoders, including the rf/af gain controls
which divide off a standard voltage and are converted to digital
before they are used for anything and must be processed to have
effect.  In a completely analog radio, each pot is always connected to
its own circuit.

The shift/width/speed/cmp controls are encoders only and tell the CPU
when they are being turned and which direction, They can only only
have an effect when the CPU is paying attention to them.  There is no
end of pot or physical range limits on them.  They do not retain their
state like rf/af controls.  In order to be continuously responsive,
the firmware program(s) would have to be constantly running a state
function for each of them, even while creating the transmit envelope
from digitized input.  This could be disproportionately more difficult
code or disproportionately more use of processing resources. Using
encoders allows multiple functions for each knob, which would not be
possible with if they were pots.

But someone from Elecraft would need to comment to the rationale of
freezing a given RX setting during TX and whether any unfreezing is on
the firmware-to-do list.

I know they have gone through at least two phases of optimizing code
for resource use.

I have to be careful myself -- I tend to be irritated by anything that
is different, and there is a LOT in a K3 different from an analog
radio.  So far none of them are deal breakers, and me getting used to
them has been the real issue.  I was still fussing a year later about
my new FT1000MP.  But when it was all over, were it not for fixing the
key clicks, the quite crushable front end, and all the IM crap it
added to the ambient band noise, it would still be my favorite, just
because matched INRAD 8 pole filters in both IF's for all modes and
bandwidths really worked well for selectivity AND I was finally used
to the menus and knobs and rarely had to look anything up in the
manual.  My new rig angst isn't particular to the K3, it's just me.
It's new anything angst.

I hate changes, I hate surprises, yada, yada, but that's my problem.
Were it not for four years non-contest operating with a K2, the K3
analog-to-digital-disconnect change together with panel changes may
have been a deal breaker with where-the-h*ll-are-the-band-buttons,
etc. But I had already figured out I could hear way better on any band
with my K2 than the MP, and my brain's anti-change barking dog was
regularly whipped back into the corner for the privilege of hearing
the EU 40m QRP-basement-noodle-antenna crowd on my K3, and realizing
that the next layer was an apparently inexhaustible layer of Russians
that points to some *RX* antenna work to get them.  So now I'm getting
used to the K3, .....

Going to N1MM logger from the DOS-based TR logger was quite more
irritating than any switching receivers. I was thrown in the deep end
of the pool, do or die, at a multi-op station with all those other ops
around me that switched years ago and were very helpful, but couldn't
quite keep the smirk off their face....

73, Guy.

On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 6:07 AM, HA3AUI <ha3aui at ax.hu> wrote:
> I wonder if anyone else has noticed, most of the front panel controls
> are disabled during TX?
> It's quite annoying during a contest for example, where you could use
> that little time to make an adjustment eg. change bandwidth, turn on/off
> preamp etc. before the rig returns to RX.
> I've never ever seen this behavior on any other rig that I own.
>
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