[Elecraft] K3 - Ergonomics

[David and Dianne on Comcast]

Joe, W4TV and Ian, GM3SEK; I found both of your 
posts to be spot on with me and very insightful.

I own K3 #371 and have been disappointed with the 
lack of its further development in the past 18 
months or the "finishing" of some features as 
mentioned by Ian.. And as much as I have tried, 
really tried, for SIX years to adapt to the "tap 
and hold" button feature...it's not for me.

When new, the K3 was a blast to own, to use and to 
participate in the development of it for about the 
first four years. But my attitude towards it has 
changed in the past two years or so.

It's not the the K3 is "bad", far from it, but  it 
could be refined into an even better rig rather 
than into an apparent development stepping stone 
for the KX3 which holds no interest here for me. 
To me, one of the shortcomings of SDR is that the 
promise of on-going support and upgrades is 
usually not fulfilled in the long run, for myriad 
business and technology related reasons. I view 
promises from any manufacturer (TT, ICOM, Kenwood, 
Flex etc.) concerning future, long-term firmware 
development with great skepticism. It never 
continues past a certain time-frame which is 
usually ends much sooner than one initially 
expects.  As for updated/redeveloped K3 boards to 
be forthcoming, I hope ... but expect not. So I am 
not holding out hope for any further meaningful 
development for the K3. Elecraft has been far 
better with it than most but it appears that the 
K3 with 8000+ units sold is now a mature product 
which will see refinements and enhancements as 
rarer and rarer occurrences if at all.

I have found myself contemplating parting ways 
with the K3 and Elecraft of late being drawn back 
to using  my TT Corsair II and Omni V.9 more and 
more. Highly modified by me, they compete very 
favorably with the K3 for my op style and 
expectations. (IMO TT has gone in a very strange 
business direction of late which causes me to 
wonder what they are doing).

Everyone is entitled to their personal opinions 
and for most the K3 seems to still be the epitome 
of HF rig evolution. That's fine. I mean you no 
bad will nor is my intention to convince you 
otherwise.

But after six years I still miss my dedicated band 
switching (with stacking registers) and I still 
don't like Kool-Aid regardless of flavor.  ;-)

73 de N1LQ-Dave