[Elecraft] Feature suggestion: Power setting in dBm

[EricJ]

My guess is the average ham doesn't have the slightest concept of dBw 
nor would it seem intuitive if they did. Cranking a knob isn't all that 
onerous. Even those of us who use dBw regularly on the bench, just pick 
one or a couple output powers that they use. In my case, 90% of the time 
it's 5w, occasionally 20w and sometimes 100w. And there the knob sits 
without further change.

We had similar discussions in the automotive industry. Not about units 
of measure, but methods of displaying useful information. When 
instrument panels started using digital displays for a few things, we 
discovered that they were useful for things like vehicle speed, but they 
were disasters for tachometers and engine monitoring or a binary "idiot 
light".  They work for vehicle speed because you are seeking to maintain 
a specific speed flashed at you periodically on road signs. But we don't 
use tachometers that way. We're looking for ranges and trends of engine 
speed, not a specific number. Same with engine monitoring. We just want 
to glance and see it is within range. A digital display makes you have 
to think. You shouldn't have to think about water temperature and oil 
pressure. In racing, we simplified everything even more. We rotated the 
gauges so the needle always pointed straight up on every gauge when it 
was centered on the desired range.

There are times when a linear controls and displays works fine and times 
when a log controls and displays are more meaningful. Virtually everyone 
intuitively understands linear versions. Hardly anyone intuitively 
understands logarithmic versions, esp. these days without slide rules.

Eric KE6US


On 3/1/2018 3:46 PM, Steve Sergeant wrote:
> I fail to see the need for a hundred steps between 0.1W and 10W on my
> KX2, or steps between 1W and 100W on another radio. What difference is
> it going to make to anybody whether you're at 71 vs. 74 watts? But a
> 1.5_dB or a 3_dB step? That's something I can use.
>
>
> On 3/1/18 14:37 PM, Wes Stewart wrote:
>> I fail to see the need, but if I had one I would just do in my head.
>> (and probably use dBW :-)
>>
>> Wes  N7WS
>>
>> On 3/1/2018 1:07 PM, Steve Sergeant wrote:
>>> Here's a suggestion across the line, from the KX2 to the K3S:
>>>
>>> I'd like to have the option to display and set transmit power in dBm
>>> rather than linear watts. Conceptually, it makes more sense to me, and
>>> it's a more meaningful number relating to S-units on the received side.
>>>
>>> --... ...--
>>> SteveSgt, KC6ZKT
>>> ______________________________________________________________
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>