Rick and all,
I loaned my Eagle to a friend for an in-shack evaluation.
He went to Dayton, but there's a limit to what you can do with equipment
on display there.
Here is his impression of the Eagle:
"Now on the the Eagle. It plays very nicely, the receiver and QSK are
great, but the ergonomics fall seriously short. Not enough buttons and
knobs to do the job. One of my pet peeves is not having a dedicated
keyer speed control. You need to poke two buttons before you can crank
the knob. Ditto the RIT.
I had it turned on and used it extensively in the four days before I
left for Dayton so I did get to know it well enough. The box sure gets
hot just receiving. If they’d put it in a slightly larger container with
a little bigger face with a little more room for controls I think it
would have made a big difference."
Initially he was quite impressed with the specs of the Eagle, in a box
not much larger than the Argonaut V.
When he did go to Dayton, he ordered a K3.
I recall the test that a French ham did - a A/B/C comparison of an
Eagle, K3 and TS-590.
For him, the ergonomics of the TS-590 won out.
So, for transceivers with fairly comparable specs, it can often come
down to the very subjective area of ergonomics; much like the feel of a
high-quality paddle.
As to a transceiver with limited bands, say 20/30/40, well...that
wouldn't work for me.
I got beyond my fascination for small QRP radios that had single-band
coverage or, at most, three bands.
That ended about the time that Index Labs came out with the QRP+ with
160-10m in one small package.
73 de Jim - AD6CW
_______________________________________________
TenTec mailing list
TenTec@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
|