[Elecraft] K3 intelligence

[John Canfield]

Hi Skip,

I have a K3S (built by me 10 years ago) which has been a wonderful radio 
but I wanted to move up to the next generation Elecraft, the K4. My 
particular K4 is the K4D model with a fully independent sub receiver 
that has diversity capability (which is a *rarity* with ham transceivers 
and I do use the feature.)

At my age, learning new tricks can be time consuming and frustrating at 
times and moving from the K3S (and TS-890S) to the K4 did involve quite 
a bit of head scratching and studying various resources. There's a great 
K4 groups.io message board which I have used several times to get 
questions answered and also a Zoom video meeting every Sunday afternoon 
for Q&A.

Anyway all of that was a lead-in to: was it worth the money and 
investment of time for me? There's an easy answer, the K4 performance 
isn't just a little 'better' compared to the K3S, it's magnitudes 
better. User interface is well thought out, the front panel is 
uncluttered, there's a huge configurable display, and on and on and on.

I needed to use the K3S and KPA500 amp combo (my KPA1500 is in for 
service) for a day or two and I felt like I was being punished. 
Seriously. I moved the amp to the K4D and life was good. At this point I 
think my K3S is going back on the shelf and the TS-890S is coming out 
for a secondary radio.


John WB5THT
EM00ig

On 1/29/2025 11:00 AM, elecraft-request at mailman.qth.net wrote:
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2025 11:23:56 -0800
> From: Fred Jensen<k6dgwnv at gmail.com>
> To: Reflector Elecraft<elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
> Subject: [Elecraft] K3 intelligence
> Message-ID:<d9564f08-9cb9-053c-ec30-25c040c734f6 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>
> ...snip.....
>
> I purchased my K3/100 at Pacificon and I wish I remembered when but it
> was a long time ago.? I've considered a K4 but I know how to work my K3
> and I'm not keen on learning how to work a new radio with a much bigger
> computer and way more functionality.
>
> 73,
>
> Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
> Sparks NV DM09dn
> Washoe County
>