> high speed display is missing the point entirely. The name of the game
> in panadaptors is RESOLUTION and the ability to twiddle sweep speed and
> AVERAGING parameters in such a way that best allows you to visually
> identify the weak signals you're looking for.
For the reason explained by Floyd, it seems to me that today, inclusion of a
panadapter into a transceiver is not a very good use of a company's design
resources. The inclusion of a simple 8-9 MHz buffered IF port opens up a
whole new world to the operating experience that can never be completely
duplicated with internal band scopes. Of course, that assumes a
mid-frequency IF is available in the design that precludes such an option
with traditional up-conversion designs. Ten tec was smart to add an IF port
to the Eagle. That one low-cost feature alone separates the Eagle from the
Kenwood TS-590 by a long shot.
In 2005, I purchased an Icom IC-7800. For the two years, my thought was
that any manufacturer who could not, or would not, include an internal
panadapter would soon face extinction. I held that view until something
quite abrupt occurred. I experimented with an SDR-IQ on the IF port of an
Elecraft K3. After witnessing the panoramic detail, waterfall display
choices, secondary receivers (through SDR-IQ), there was no turning back.
Suddenly, I viewed internal panadapters as a millstone around the necks of
manufacturers. None of the present manufacturers have the resources to
provide the pan ability and control utility provided by SDR-IQ, SpectraVue,
LP-PAN, PowerSDR-IF, etc., nor should they. Look at the display provided
by Yaesu with their FTdx-5000 product. Frankly, it's a panadpater in name
only.
Manufacturers only need to give us a high-quality IF port and a means for
rig control. The rest of the panadapter and control functions can be better
managed by folks like Carl, N4PY, Moe, AE4JY, and Scott, WU2X. Despite past
moans from Ten Tec users, I think that in the end, Ten Tec was right to
delay inclusion of an internal high-performance panadapter into the O2. At
some point, perhaps Ten Tec may want to market an external panadapter
similar to the Elecraft P3, where that device could be used for more than
one Ten Tec transceiver. Even so, it's doubtful that the device could
approach the low cost and high performance provided by a small netbook PC
and SDR-IQ or Softrock receiver.
Paul, W9AC
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