> I am quite a neophyte when it comes to hands on design considerations of
> radio receivers, but I regularly listen to Eric WA6HHQ, and his partner in
> Elecraft give talks in the Central California Region about their
wunderkind,
> the Elecraft K-2. He really explains the MANY considerations that went
> into it's design, and is justifiably proud of the result.
I'm not saying anyone at Elecraft was careless or taking anything away from
its designers, but we do have to be realistic about things. There is nothing
*EXTRA* special or exotic about the design.
The mixer is a run-of-the-mill non-special Minicircuits diode
double-balanced mixer that has been available since the 70's or early 80's.
The preamp and mixer post amp use a single CATV transistor that has been
around since the 70's, and aren't even particularly special applications of
the 2N5109, such as noiseless feedback designs or push-pull designs.
The mixer isn't a high-level style, and the amplifiers aren't particularly
special. It is inexpensive early 80's front-end, mixer, and post mixer
amplifier technology that you can find in any copy of Solid State Design for
the Radio Amateur or dozens of other books.
The performance of the K2 relative to modern high-dollar rigs speaks more of
how poorly the high-dollar rigs are designed than anything exotic or special
in the K2. The manufacturers of $3000 radios should be ashamed of this, not
the people at Elecraft.
73 Tom
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