Bill and All,
You are misinformed on a bunch of stuff concerning the SDR-1K. On
CW, if you use an external keyer, so what if the code stream lags the
key? It's all there and you are not listening to it but to the
external keyer. It's not QSK I agree, but so not are a bunch of
Japanese rigs in the same price range. I can operate QSK with my
Omni -VI, Jupiter, K2/100, or even my Triton IV, 540, but I am
missing a lot of good transceiver operation vs the SDR-1K. I
currently am using a 4 year old HP with a 2.1 Ghz AMD with no
compromises in performance at all. Costs me $500. That plus SDR-1k
,100 watt amp with antenna tuner, a high end sound card and high end
mike still came in at under $2.5k.
I admit from what I hear (do not own one) there are many things that
the Orion II will do that my SDR-1K setup will not, and vice versa
mainly in the areas of enhanced received and transmitted signal
performance, not to mention the other things a computer can do if you
are counting the total cost. I'll be glad to run transmit signal
quality comparison tests any time, and the Panadapter on receive
really has to be seen to be appreciated just to mention two. I'm
not trying to convince you, but just to set the record straight.
The SDR-1K is the first of it's breed, and subsequent hardware will
easily surpass any stand alone rig. If I were Ten Tec and the other
manufacturers, I would be looking at similar radio, and the Pegasus
is not a similar radio. Maybe a step along the way.
73, Chas, W1CG
At 08:26 AM 4/30/2006, Bill Tippett wrote:
On 30 August W9OY wrote:
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When I look at the keying waveform in the review
article the first dit shows up on the antenna AFTER
the second dit is produced at the key. No VOX, No
QSK, gonna be fixed real soon tho, yep real soon.
Lemme see the article says you need a souped up 3.2ghz
P4 with a high buck sound card and gigs of memory just
to get the dits to be 2 elements out of sequence, and
then you have to re-arrange your brain to be able to
copy. But it isn't too bad, nope not too bad...you
get used to it... and its gonna be fixed any day
now... why with a little practice you can get up to
maybe 30wpm.
I would not call this just as good, and given the
amount of computer needed I don't see it as half the
price. 1325 bux of radio and 1500 bux of computer/
sound card/monitor/shuttle knob etc does not equal
half the cost.
The radio is interesting for sure. I think it will be
interesting to see how the design flaws get worked
out, and whether or not the flaws turn out to be
lethal or not. I also find it interesting that the
highest end P4 multi gig memory radio can't do what
the century 21 (another direct conversion radio) did
with ease, send good code. I have been seriously
considering getting one of these because I find the
whole concept interesting, but I do not see this as
anything but vaporware in terms of its being a high
performance radio at this time. Interesting that my
Orion uses a processor similar in power to my palm
pilot and can do more than what the SDR-1K does.
I was on the Elecraft IRC site a couple of months ago,
and the guy there was telling me how his K2 was better
than the Orion at "half the cost". I subsequently
played with a K2 to see for myself. It neither
compares to the Orion. Its not a bad little radio but
when the going gets tough as my old buddy from Paducha
used to say "it ain't got no motor"
*****************************************************
Lee, how about another update on your SDR?
I'm wondering if the ultimate solution may be
an SDR receiver but a companion analog TX (N.B.
Orion does not have an analog transmitter, hence
its problems with QSK, time jitter, etc).
73, Bill W4ZV
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