[Elecraft] IC-7300 video - things to come

[Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ, Elecraft]

As a private pilot I fly with a Garmin GTN750 touch-screen GPS NAV/COM in a 
Cessna 182. Its powerful and quite intuitive to use, even in turbulence. (They 
included ridges along the four screen sides when needed to steady your hand.) It 
actually reduces the amount pilot load and time spent looking inside the cockpit 
when used properly - Though you can certainly abuse it dangerously if you treat 
it like a video game and forget to look outside the cockpit..   I wouldn't go 
any other way now.   (And I came from a full-on knobs based flight environment 
prior to that.)

There are great touch-screen avionics implementations and horrible ones. The 750 
is a good one and world's above many others.

I think for future ham radios and similar product designs, what will be 
important is meshing the correct balance between traditional hard knobs and 
buttons with unique touch-screen features (display and input). The overall goal 
should be to balance the user interface between the touch-screen and 
knobs/buttons for ease of use without unintended confusion while adding unique 
touch-screen display and easy to use input features.

As a side note - I use the remotehams.com free remote software with the 
K3/0-Mini and a laptop to remote my home K3S, KPA500 and Rotor. Interestingly, 
the little h/p satellite 360 convertible laptop/tablet has a touch screen, which 
I use for many functions like rotor control, amp control/status etc, but I like 
it combined with the K3/0-Mini's knobs and display for regular intuitive use, 
versus using it only for 100% computer based remote control.

73,

Eric
/elecraft.com/

On 3/29/2016 1:13 PM, lstavenhagen wrote:
> For me, even if touch-screen UI's were written for old people like myself, hi
> hi, I still think its a technology in its infancy.
>