[Elecraft] Nifty Ham Accessories Plus Opt booklet

[Vic Rosenthal]

I'll add my 2 cents -- I have the latest Elecraft manuals available on my computer, but I find myself picking up the Cady manual first. It has a great index, and is written in a "this is how you do it" style. The official manuals have all the information in them, but the Cady book  expands and explains.

Vic 4X6GP/K2VCO 

> On Mar 2, 2015, at 8:17 AM, dyarnes <w7aqk at cox.net> wrote:
> 
> Mike and All,
> 
> The manuals that Elecraft puts out are very substantive.  However, some folks, including me, have a problem at times finding the portion of the manual that directly addresses the question I might have.  That's probably just me, but often I find it more effective to refer to the downloaded manual, then use the search feature on my computer to get me to the right place.  I think as much as anything it might be that I tend to find things more quickly when there is a really substantial "Index".  There is one for the Elecraft rigs, but I'd prefer them to be a lot bigger.  Of course, just reading the manual thoroughly is perhaps the best way to get fully familiar with a rig, and it's features, but a lot of us don't take the time to do that, do we???
> 
> As for 3rd party manual aids, I can tell you that Fred Cady has produced some excellent reference material for several Elecraft products.  I highly recommend them.  The "Nifty Manuals" are handy, but I view them as being more like "Cliff Notes", that you can carry around to remind you of various features.  They tend not to be substantive as the why's and wherefores' of the radio's operation, but they do serve as a good reminder of what control generally does what.  In order to make his manuals truly useful, Fred had to give the content a lot of thought, and do all he could to make them truly justifiable as an accessory.  I think he has done that!  Fred seems to have an exceptional "knack" for organization and strong content.  I have Fred's manuals for both my K3 and my KX3, and I use them regularly.  The biggest problem with them is, perhaps, the fact that Elecraft keeps upgrading the radios, so not all of the newest features may be covered.  Nevertheless, these manuals are a great way to find and answer to your problem/question fairly quickly.  No, they are not a "mandatory" accessory since the Elecraft manuals are pretty complete.  It's just a matter of convenience, and accommodating the idiosyncrasies of those of us who maybe don't think just like the manual author might think.
> 
> By the way, anyone who may tend to be critical of Elecraft's manuals, as to thoroughness (which I am not!), might want to take a look at some offerings by other manufacturers.  Just in the last day or so, I've had occasion to peruse through the manual for an Omni VII, which a friend of mine has acquired, and was having some problems figuring out that radio.  The Omni VII manual seems to be decent, but I think it is rather "skinny", at least compared to Elecraft's manuals.  Anyway, that was my perception.  Also, I've had some Yaesu radios in the past where the manuals were fairly substantive, but the radios themselves were excessively complicated (in my opinion) with all the necessity to dig deeply into menus for regularly required changes. Now, all modern radios seem to require a lot of menu adjustments in order to deal with the plethora of features contained therein, but I personally feel that Wayne and Eric gave a lot of forethought to accommodating a lot of features plus ease of access to those features.  If you will take the time to become as fully familiar as possible with each control on an Elecraft radio, and what all it will do, you will go a long way to making your life easier.  Many/most of the menu items on Elecraft radios are "set them once and forget them" type items, if you even need to do anything!  Almost all of the common adjustments are right there on the front panel!
> 
> In any event, the complexity of most modern radios almost necessitates that we get all the help we can to properly use them.  So, well organized 3rd party offerings are probably a good thing most of the time, but some are better