[Elecraft] K4?

[Grant Youngman]

It is of some note that (except for a niggle here or there including the elimination of all possible noise — good luck with that) there hasn’t been much said about basic performance of the radio.  That’s for good reason.

I would like to see a feature that would eliminate all “shouting at the K3” anytime one’s attached Windows-something computer running 15 ham radio apps gets confused and can’t talk to the radio or screws something up :-) 

Most of the feature requests seem to be related to contesting or remote operation or the furthering of the evolutionary enhancement of the index finger — but not being a gamer myself, I’m perfectly happy with a radio being just a … ah … um … compact, lightweight, transportable (and portable) high performance radio.  Bogged down into a larger and heavier box? — not so much.  I replaced several of those larger, heavier, and perfectly adequate boxes with a K3 for a reason.  It would be hard to go back.

Now, all that might change if the new one was truly “spectacular” and made the K3 look like a DX-20 by comparison — the right radio could be better than food on the table :-). And I do like the EER idea.

Grant NQ5T
K3 #2091 KX3 #8342

> On Mar 25, 2019, at 2:35 PM, W2xj <W2xj at w2xj.net> wrote:
> 
> I’ve read a lot of interesting ideas relating mostly to features. Here are some cutting (or should I say bleeding) edge ideas.
> 
> The most radical would be to eliminate linear amplification on transmit. Instead, go with a class E design and in DSP generate EER compatible signals. This is how very high powered commercial transmitters do SSB but any waveform can be generated that way. Efficiency goes to nearly 90% as opposed to less than 50% for a linear. IMD can be lower than -80 db while power consumption is reduced and there is less heat to remove. This would be a radical departure from the competition and work well in portable operation. 
>