[Elecraft] [OT] Dayton- new hf rigs?

[Lu Romero]

Some "final" comments while watching this thread progress:

I agree with Lyle... SDR does not mean "processing by PC". 
Our K3's and KX3's are fully qualified Software Defined
Radios with processing on embedded processors.  Sort of like
what Flex is looking to build now.  It doesnt matter where
the code runs, folks, just because it doesnt run on external
Intel silicon does not mean it aint an SDR!  

The Embedded Systems approach is a safer path than trusting
your device (perhipheral?) to the vagarities of personal
computer OS and hardware "progress".  At least you have SOME
control of the environment!  Professional applications have
to be more resilient to the whims of software and hardware
changes that will rear their ugly heads at the worst
possible times.  The big push for Elecraft to embrace USB
instead of serial comms comes directly to mind... RS232 is
well defined and robust.  I certainly do not want to be left
to the whims of USB driver code with my computer to radio
comms.  I get enough of this stuff at work to have to deal
with it when Im trying to relax on the radio.

$200 a year for a $8k software based product is a bit steep
for a "hobby" product.  Frankly, this fee is very much a
high profit margin fee.  An ex employer of mine used to
charge 20% of the undiscounted price of an entire system on
a yearly basis, and this fee was around 30% of the profit
for the entire division. They demanded this early on in the
product cycle because the product was the only one of the
many in the industry that actually worked right.  Sadly for
them, the competition got better and in about 5 years, that
profit completely vaporized.

All support costs money; but you have to be reasonable about
it. Being in that business myself, reliability is key, not
the latest fun thing from some software developer.  My new
employer (I will join them in July) still runs their
broadcast transcode processes using MS Server 2003.  Why? 
Because they know all the bugs in it, and they dont know the
bugs in Server 2010 yet.  When it has to run 24x7x365, the
devil you know is better than the devil you dont know.

Windows updates!  Larry Phipps, being a broadcast engineer,
understands this scary thing. Tell you a quick horror story
about Windows Update.  A local station in Pittsburgh
installed a new whiz-bang automated news production system
to automate their newscast production a few years ago. 
Where they would employ 15 people in the making of this
program, now with the "automation", they only needed 5 to do
an even fancier show! The system ran on Windows machines. It
was installed and worked wonderfully; the customer was very
happy.  The factory installation engineer (a personal friend
of mine) personally turned off all the Windows Update
settings on the many machines that comprised this system,
and admonished the station engineering folks to leave this
feature turned off, which they did.  The system ran
perfectly for several months until one day, the entire
system collapsed, relegating the noon and 5pm newscasts to
being performed with news cameras hastily set up in the
station parking lot.  Upon investigation of the problem by
my friend after a hurried trip to the station, it was found
that a station IT guy had turned on Windows Update on one of
the newsroom computer interface machines. When this machine
decided to update itself right before the noon news, it
brought the ENTIRE automation system down with it.

Moral of the story:  Windows Updates can kill you.

Lu - w4lt-
K3 #3192

-------------------------

Message: 18
Date: Mon, 21 May 2012 19:56:20 -0400
From: Don Wilhelm <w3fpr at embarqmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] [OT] Dayton- new hf rigs?
To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Message-ID: <4FBAD624.3000604 at embarqmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

If you want an extended example of the PC implementation of
SDR, take a 
look at LP-PAN.  That is an "SDR converter" (for receive
only) to take 
the IF of a receiver and convert it to I/Q signals which can
be further 
processed in a panadapter display on a personal computer.

One of the things Larry Phipps emphasizes is that once you
get 
everything working, do NOT allow Windows to update.  While
supposedly, 
Windows updates are good for security  situations, it is
known that such 
updates will "upset the applecart" with the SDR handling
software.

I bring this example in to point out the dependency that SDR
systems 
that use a personal computer have on the operating system
which can 
change from day to day.  The embedded processor does not
have that 
exposure, and IMHO is much better because it is more stable.

The downloadable firmware for the K3 and KX3 definitely put
those radios 
into the SDR arena.  I certainly hope Elecraft does not
begin to charge 
$200 a year for firmware (and technical) support.
Yes, charging for upgrades within the software community is
not unknown, 
and I do not begrudge Carl N4PY for doing that - he has an
excellent 
product, but $200 a year seem a bit "steep" - Carl charges
$35 per year 
- a big difference.

73,
Don W3FPR