They may seem hard to believe:
I meet one of the part-time Kachina design engineers at lunch last month.
He had a 505 sent to are Club Station " Radio Farm/ N0MA" here in Iowa.
Most of are members are Rockwell Design Engineers and understand what
State of Art radio Design could be.
Before we turned it on we disassembled all of the modular plug in circuit
boards.
The building concept is one that allows you to remove and swap Boards
yourself.
It is obvious that this was a commercial radio first and reprogrammed for
Ham use.
It is very solid and very well shielded. The advertised picture depicts
its size much
larger than real life. It is the size of a Delta and can be located 75
feet from the control
head and computer.
Next we turned it on, grabbed the mouse and introduced are thoughts to
its
ease of use.
I must say that I hate the way Computers have been forced on many of us
though
the years.
This radio has been an exception! It is realy easy to operate!
Put yourself in a frame of mind. a radio with one knob that knows
how to do everything. This knob lays flat on a table at any location
desired.
IT A MOUSE! EEEHHH! Yes, you still have a PTT or a foot switch with you
favorite
microphone. You can use the Vox, if the PTT sounds like too much work.
There is no-way I can explain valuable features like a build in antenna
analyzer
with smith chart.
And yes!, the DSP is in the IF stage where is should be.
We have not had time to give it are total blessing.
We have a assortment of high end test equipment to test it with.
The HP-8920a, it are standard once over tester.
It looks like we may have the 505 for sometime. We will see how user
friendly
it is as time goes by.
We will make a list of quirks and dislikes as they arise.
I have compared ear pleasing sound to my Corsair, Triton, FT-890at,
Kenwood 940,
Icom 735 so far. It is just unreal how much dynamic range there is.
It is like comparing records to CD's in the fidelity.
We would like to run it threw a few crushing contests to see how the
selectivity proves
out.
One quirk so far is the internal keyer is QSK, but falls short of
providing a solid
window between DITs and DAH's. I solved this with a external keyer and it
is now
as smooth as my TEN-TEC's.
I am not sure QST test radios in quality analysis as are intuitive and
personal
experience do. I give them credit for doing a great job for what they have
to work with.
Time will tell if the Radio Farm herds the 505 are way.
Jack Kovar
k0var
Iowa
----------
> From: JAMES T BRANNIGAN <FSWF37A@prodigy.com>
> To: disorder@fastlane.net; tentec@contesting.com
> Subject: [TenTec] Kachina
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
> Date: Wednesday, April 22, 1998 8:00 PM
>
> Hi Mike,
> The Kachina looks like a nifty rig...but
> Why buy a radio in a computer and give up a radio in a box with the
> tuning knobs and switches we are all used to..
> With the OMNI VI+ you can have both...computer control for contesting
> or just fool'in around and the ability to hunch over the radio,
> twiddling knobs, digging out those weak ones!!! oh yes, and get a
> super radio to boot!!!
> Besides, I've spent a lot of time keeping RF out of the computer..it
> makes me a little queezy putting it in..
> and keep the Drakes.."real radios glow in the dark" I keep a Collins
> S-line and R-390 around for nostalgia..
>
> 73, Jim WB2TPS
>
> --
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