K4 Initial Impressions

[Rick Tavan-2]

First of all, let me get this off my chest: *WOW!* The K4 is a spectacular
radio. We've all known for some time how nice it looks - the display is
gorgeous - from its appearances at hamfests. But now that I've had not only
my eyes but also my hands and ears on an *early K4D field test unit*, I can
make a few initial comments about the radio from a user perspective. Bottom
line: *It was worth the wait.*

*The box:* it's the same size as the KPA1500 amp RF deck. They'll look
great together and perform as if they were a one-box, 1500 watt radio. I
have a KPA1500 but it's at the other shack and hasn't "met" my K4 yet. I
plan to introduce them to each other later this week when I travel to the
remote QTH. It's a little heavier than the K3 but still a compact, portable
radio. The covers have nice flanges for better shielding where they contact
the front, rear, and side parts. It looks very much like the successor to
K3/K3s that it is, but the display is much more than a re-packaged and
internalized P3.

*The user interface: *It's very similar to the K3. Tap- and hold-functions
let each button and many knobs do double-duty. There are several
user-programmable function keys, four message memory buttons that can also
serve as per-band frequency memories, and most of the button functions are
the same as or similar to identically-labeled K3 functions. Some of the
controls are "soft," labeled on the display and adjustable with knobs on
the hard panel. It's a thoroughly-familiar UI for a K3 user and, I believe,
will be easier to learn for a newcomer to Elecraft radios. There will be
context-sensitive Help but I haven't used it. I was skeptical a few weeks
ago when an Elecraft developer told me that I would learn the UI in a day.
He was wrong. It took less than that.

*The panafall:* It's wider, sharper and seems even faster than the already
fast and accurate P3. The controls are "soft" rather than dedicated buttons
but have very similar functionality. You can adjust the relative heights of
the spectrum display and waterfall area. You can assign a single panafall
display to either main or sub-rx (which you couldn't do with P3). You can
also set up dual panafalls, one for each receiver. And the receivers can be
on different bands with different antennas so you can watch two bands at
once. This shack doesn't have separate feed lines, so comments on that are
theoretical based on the sophisticated antenna switching. I'll be able to
say more when I QSY to the more capable mountain QTH later in the week.

*The rest of the display:* They did a great job of providing situational
awareness here. The two receiver information areas are identical,
displaying frequency, S-meter, passband graphic, and mode info. Between
those two areas are big, bold indications of which VFO is controlling the
TX, whether SPLIT is in effect, and a smaller RIT/XIT indicator. There are
"soft" controls on the left that indicate settings for the three
multi-function knobs. You can see all the settings at a glance and control
them with zero, one, or two taps. It's an effective consolidation of what
could have been a large array of separate controls and indicators.

*The soft controls: *The eight soft buttons at the bottom invoke various
setting areas and menus that temporarily occupy space in the panafall area,
condensing the panafall temporarily to make room. The only two that require
frequent use are BAND and DISPLAY. BAND brings up band buttons with the
long-desired band-stacking register functionality. Personally, I liked the
K3 band switching model which now becomes a subset of the richer model in
the K4. The DISPLAY functionality is similar to the controls of the P3 but
more visually appealing and has the extra power described above. The MENU
area is easier to read and much more informative  than the K3 main and
config menus. Each function has a long, easily-understood description.

*Rx Audio:* At risk of overloading my use of an expletive, WOW! The
receiver audio is much improved over the K3. It sounds full and rich on
both CW and SSB, even before adjusting the touch-sensitive sliders of the
RX equalizer. (I'm just starting to experiment with that. Its functionally
is like the one in the K3 but has a nice graphic user interface.) I've
listened using a Yamaha CM500 headset and using a pair of Insignia computer
speakers, both driven through a cheap four-port headphone amp and the
speakers through a cascaded, cheap, stereo speaker amp (which shouldn't be
necessary with this receiver but I haven't pulled it out of the lash-up). I
haven't listened to the internal speaker much yet but it sounded good
during a brief test, much better than the one in the K3.

*CW:* My favorite mode. The QSK and semi-break-in are excellent. On QSK I
can hear between dits at 35+ WPM. It's clean and clear without distracting
artifacts. I'll use it often. Semi- break-in is more pleasant, letting in
less band noise. You can adjust break-in delay all the way down to "zero"
which gives you between-word or, at lower speeds, between-character
frequency awareness. Also excellent.

*SSB:* On SSB, I've received unsolicited comments about great transmit
audio, again using the CM500 mic and no adjustment of the TX equalizer.

*Contesting:* I'm a somewhat reformed contester by historical passion but
haven't yet had a lot of time "in the fray" with the K4. I made a
hundred-plus contacts in the All Asian using the K4, an ACOM 1000 amp, a
3el 20 and 2el shorty-40 around 50', from a Norcal suburban lot. Conditions
were poor and I got lots of calls from very weak stations which I was
usually able to pull out of the band noise without attempting much knob
twiddling. I got a few weak pileups that didn't activate AGC. Fellow field
tester N6TV put in more time, made more Qs, and got some pileups of
stronger signals. He said he liked the AGC performance but I'll leave it to
him to elaborate. I think this radio will do better than the K3 in
pileups.  I look forward to exercising it from my rural, mountain-ridge QTH
with the KPA1500 in conditions that induce more, stronger pileups.

*Interfacing: *The K4 is plug-compatible with my K3. With a much better
arrangement of rear-panel connectors, higher quality connectors, identical
front-panel connectors, and pin-compatibility, it was a seamless
conversion. Specifically, the Key In, Paddle In, PTT In, PTT Out, Phones
Out, Speaker Out, Line In/Out, Rx ANT In/Out, 12 VDC Accessory Power, and
Xvtr In/Out connectors are all the same as K3. It has both USB-B (which I
used) and RS-232 to connect to the computer and additional USB-A
connectors, one of which I used for a K*Pod which works great. It has an
RJ-45 Ethernet connection which provides two-tap "Phone Home" capability to
download firmware revisions from the Mother Ship, easier than using K3
Utility. The 15-pin ACC connector is compatible so I had instant antenna
switching through a Top-Ten band decoder driving a tower-mounted antenna
switch. These capabilities will be even more welcome at the more complex
SO2R station in the mountains.

Enough for now; more later. I'm loving this radio!

73,

/Rick N6XI
--

Rick Tavan
Truckee and Saratoga, CA
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[Bill Lederer]

Sounds quite awesome.

When you are using the amp, do you do break-in there as well?

Thanks,
w8lvn

On Mon, Jun 22, 2020 at 12:39 PM Rick Tavan <[hidden email]> wrote:

> First of all, let me get this off my chest: *WOW!* The K4 is a spectacular
> radio. We've all known for some time how nice it looks - the display is
> gorgeous - from its appearances at hamfests. But now that I've had not only
> my eyes but also my hands and ears on an *early K4D field test unit*, I can
> make a few initial comments about the radio from a user perspective. Bottom
> line: *It was worth the wait.*
>
> *The box:* it's the same size as the KPA1500 amp RF deck. They'll look
> great together and perform as if they were a one-box, 1500 watt radio. I
> have a KPA1500 but it's at the other shack and hasn't "met" my K4 yet. I
> plan to introduce them to each other later this week when I travel to the
> remote QTH. It's a little heavier than the K3 but still a compact, portable
> radio. The covers have nice flanges for better shielding where they contact
> the front, rear, and side parts. It looks very much like the successor to
> K3/K3s that it is, but the display is much more than a re-packaged and
> internalized P3.
>
> *The user interface: *It's very similar to the K3. Tap- and hold-functions
> let each button and many knobs do double-duty. There are several
> user-programmable function keys, four message memory buttons that can also
> serve as per-band frequency memories, and most of the button functions are
> the same as or similar to identically-labeled K3 functions. Some of the
> controls are "soft," labeled on the display and adjustable with knobs on
> the hard panel. It's a thoroughly-familiar UI for a K3 user and, I believe,
> will be easier to learn for a newcomer to Elecraft radios. There will be
> context-sensitive Help but I haven't used it. I was skeptical a few weeks
> ago when an Elecraft developer told me that I would learn the UI in a day.
> He was wrong. It took less than that.
>
> *The panafall:* It's wider, sharper and seems even faster than the already
> fast and accurate P3. The controls are "soft" rather than dedicated buttons
> but have very similar functionality. You can adjust the relative heights of
> the spectrum display and waterfall area. You can assign a single panafall
> display to either main or sub-rx (which you couldn't do with P3). You can
> also set up dual panafalls, one for each receiver. And the receivers can be
> on different bands with different antennas so you can watch two bands at
> once. This shack doesn't have separate feed lines, so comments on that are
> theoretical based on the sophisticated antenna switching. I'll be able to
> say more when I QSY to the more capable mountain QTH later in the week.
>
> *The rest of the display:* They did a great job of providing situational
> awareness here. The two receiver information areas are identical,
> displaying frequency, S-meter, passband graphic, and mode info. Between
> those two areas are big, bold indications of which VFO is controlling the
> TX, whether SPLIT is in effect, and a smaller RIT/XIT indicator. There are
> "soft" controls on the left that indicate settings for the three
> multi-function knobs. You can see all the settings at a glance and control
> them with zero, one, or two taps. It's an effective consolidation of what
> could have been a large array of separate controls and indicators.
>
> *The soft controls: *The eight soft buttons at the bottom invoke various
> setting areas and menus that temporarily occupy space in the panafall area,
> condensing the panafall temporarily to make room. The only two that require
> frequent use are BAND and DISPLAY. BAND brings up band buttons with the
> long-desired band-stacking register functionality. Personally, I liked the
> K3 band switching model which now becomes a subset of the richer model in
> the K4. The DISPLAY functionality is similar to the controls of the P3 but
> more visually appealing and has the extra power described above. The MENU
> area is easier to read and much more informative  than the K3 main and
> config menus. Each function has a long, easily-understood description.
>
> *Rx Audio:* At risk of overloading my use of an expletive, WOW! The
> receiver audio is much improved over the K3. It sounds full and rich on
> both CW and SSB, even before adjusting the touch-sensitive sliders of the
> RX equalizer. (I'm just starting to experiment with that. Its functionally
> is like the one in the K3 but has a nice graphic user interface.) I've
> listened using a Yamaha CM500 headset and using a pair of Insignia computer
> speakers, both driven through a cheap four-port headphone amp and the
> speakers through a cascaded, cheap, stereo speaker amp (which shouldn't be
> necessary with this receiver but I haven't pulled it out of the lash-up). I
> haven't listened to the internal speaker much yet but it sounded good
> during a brief test, much better than the one in the K3.
>
> *CW:* My favorite mode. The QSK and semi-break-in are excellent. On QSK I
> can hear between dits at 35+ WPM. It's clean and clear without distracting
> artifacts. I'll use it often. Semi- break-in is more pleasant, letting in
> less band noise. You can adjust break-in delay all the way down to "zero"
> which gives you between-word or, at lower speeds, between-character
> frequency awareness. Also excellent.
>
> *SSB:* On SSB, I've received unsolicited comments about great transmit
> audio, again using the CM500 mic and no adjustment of the TX equalizer.
>
> *Contesting:* I'm a somewhat reformed contester by historical passion but
> haven't yet had a lot of time "in the fray" with the K4. I made a
> hundred-plus contacts in the All Asian using the K4, an ACOM 1000 amp, a
> 3el 20 and 2el shorty-40 around 50', from a Norcal suburban lot. Conditions
> were poor and I got lots of calls from very weak stations which I was
> usually able to pull out of the band noise without attempting much knob
> twiddling. I got a few weak pileups that didn't activate AGC. Fellow field
> tester N6TV put in more time, made more Qs, and got some pileups of
> stronger signals. He said he liked the AGC performance but I'll leave it to
> him to elaborate. I think this radio will do better than the K3 in
> pileups.  I look forward to exercising it from my rural, mountain-ridge QTH
> with the KPA1500 in conditions that induce more, stronger pileups.
>
> *Interfacing: *The K4 is plug-compatible with my K3. With a much better
> arrangement of rear-panel connectors, higher quality connectors, identical
> front-panel connectors, and pin-compatibility, it was a seamless
> conversion. Specifically, the Key In, Paddle In, PTT In, PTT Out, Phones
> Out, Speaker Out, Line In/Out, Rx ANT In/Out, 12 VDC Accessory Power, and
> Xvtr In/Out connectors are all the same as K3. It has both USB-B (which I
> used) and RS-232 to connect to the computer and additional USB-A
> connectors, one of which I used for a K*Pod which works great. It has an
> RJ-45 Ethernet connection which provides two-tap "Phone Home" capability to
> download firmware revisions from the Mother Ship, easier than using K3
> Utility. The 15-pin ACC connector is compatible so I had instant antenna
> switching through a Top-Ten band decoder driving a tower-mounted antenna
> switch. These capabilities will be even more welcome at the more complex
> SO2R station in the mountains.
>
> Enough for now; more later. I'm loving this radio!
>
> 73,
>
> /Rick N6XI
> --
>
> Rick Tavan
> Truckee and Saratoga, CA
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> Message delivered to [hidden email]
>

--
--w8lvn--
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[Jim Brown-10]

Hi Bill,

I don't have a K4, but I do have a KPA1500 and KA500. Both do flawless
QSK using PIN diodes.

73, Jim K9YC

On 6/22/2020 11:01 AM, Bill Lederer wrote:
> When you are using the amp, do you do break-in there as well?


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