"Does price buy performance or satisfaction in an HF transceiver?" - now on YouTube

I too have a Flex 6300. Way less expensive than any top end radios. I have used all the current top end radios and I absolutely prefer my Flex to any product at any price from the big three. Easier to use in every way. SmartSDR is a better mousetrap than any box radio. You can pick up a used Flex 6300 for $1500. Not exactly like buying a Lamborghini.

As for performance, all the top radios in this era are fantastic. When I do an A/B comparison with the Flex and my TS-590S, I am hard pressed to hear a difference. Both are spectacular. Where the Flex shines is the absolute ease of operation. We are in the Golden age, where top quality radios are the new norm and their inflation corrected cost is lower than ever.

 

Point well taken.
Here's a third point of view (!) - I'm 74 years old; I probably don't need my radios to run for 25 more years. ha!
That's the logic I use to try to justify getting a Tesla, also.

 

We’re reaching the point where you really can’t buy a bad radio anymore. If the IC-7300 is the worst of the lot, amateurs should be counting their blessings rather than arguing about 2 kHz RMDR measurements. Just buy the radio that you think looks the best or has a particular feature you like that the competition lacks. “Which radio is best for me?” is a question with very few wrong answers in 2021.

 

The FT-891 is IMO the best portable transceiver for receive and for the buck. I use it when working portable. It outperforms my IC-7300 in many ways.

 

You need to read Rob Sherwood’s recent QST article on Tx quality.

 

Why?

Should I discount my own knowledge and experience-- and eschew expressing an informed opinion? Do you desire or approve of it being REMOVED because you don't understand it?

If so, again, why?

Here's my opinion. Feel free to debate the facts within.

Quality of a TX signal is pretty much done for rejection. CW? Really? How pray tell, do we get a substantially BETTER CW signal than what we have over a large price range of contemporary radios?

As for SSB, well, they all are limited , even the 7851. That is because --even with the very modest 2+KHz passband- modern rigs do not incorporate well-known psychoacoustic enhancements known for decades, and commonly used even by school kids playing with plugs-ins on Garageband.

Some have the inventive spirit on better SSB and audio(and you made it VERY CLEAR elsewhere how someone who expresses that should be figuratively tarred and feather (IMO not a feather in your cap). They don't 'patent it myself'; they put it out there. Some patent the IP. They don't mislead 'copyright IP' with 'patent IP'. They improve the world. MO.

Sure, you can BUY some of that , and even mount it as hardware on a 19 inch rack, but in general they aren't in the rigs at any price ---because they are not perceived as integral to getting a 'cutting' loud SSB signal across. I don't mean 'enhanced wideband SSB'. I mean 'better SSB'. For example, doing an artificial EQ curve with phase delay for a better 'proximity effect'; costs about 40 cents in a dedicated chip. BUT. Few. Want. It. For example: a 20 ms delayed wet mix of the SSB signal. Trivial to do with an SDR. IOW, free. Where is it? No need, no rig-internal option.

We use clunky compression because hey--all compression is the same, right?

At least the CBers had the right idea with their 'echo mikes' and pings...they just took it to silly and stupid extremes.

Fidelity is not the point in an SSB signal in ham radio. The TX signals are as good as we want, and that's not all that great, frankly.

Hope that opinion helps you. And yes, I read the QST article.

 

Say, maybe ten years ago, in a cw contest you would have clean signals and lots that were quite wide (key clicks).
Now if you examine the signals (with a real sdr, not a 7300-type display) you hardly see any wide signals.
In the product reviews the ARRL always shows the shape of the transmitted cw showing rise time at 60 wpm and the resulting spectrum. Elecraft, with the K3, was one of the first manufacturers to produce a really, really clean cw signal. Yaesu used to be the worst, but their new rigs are outstanding in spectral purity.
So we have properly shaped cw elements and low phase noise (composit noise, actually) but ssb can still be unnecessarily broad, especially as long as the transceivers are built with manual mic gain controls! (Why do hts and vhf/uhf transceivers not have mic controls but hf rigs do?)

 

Depends on how one operates, doesn’t it? I sold a VERY nice FT-990 station to fund my newly discovered love for portable operations and bought a new FT-891. My interests changed, and I had to change my station to maximize it. Would I want to contest with the 891? Probably not, but could. Right now it fits my most immediate needs. I just need a radio that serves my needs. I’m 100% CW, so much of what others love about newer rigs means nothing to me. In fact, I’d be happy with my original station ... TS520SE, VFO-520, DG-5 display, SM-220, SP-520 and a good match box. Selectivity wasn’t the best (my 891 is great!) but it was a hoot to operate! Back to the question. “Does price buy performance?” That Kenwood station wouldn’t work for me as my only radio. Nor would the FT-990. But the 891 does. So price = performance? It’s not ALWAYS higher price.

I’d say yes.

 

You should reread it because Rob’s conclusion in that article is directly contrary to your original post that I was referring to.

 

You should read posts thoughtfully IMO before jumping to conclusions about others. I read his article. I am glad he has opinions--that's fine! My point is that we can EACH come to our own conclusions. Who cares if his conclusion 'contradicts ' mine?

I don't go along with the crowd. I go along with the facts.

Frankly, your implication that his opinion is more IMPORTANT than mine is offensive. Nor is his opinion more important than anyone elses.

I think you did a nice job on your presentation--a bit of overkill, but that may not be true for others.

The fact is --as a whole-- we don't want better TX. What we have is 'good enough'. Heck, we are the only major telecom segment relying almost SOLELY on 'legacy' modes!

Its a similar situation with guitarists; you have the option of self tuning; automatic key changes; in-guitar acoustic simulators. But very few want it.

Frankly I would love to see a clipper/compressor/limiter chip in rigs that gets rid of the darn transients and consistently puts the audio at a new sense of loudness. There were successful attempts at this going all the way back to the CX-7 and before. Ten tec, a few years back, used to boast of a 'sounds like a linear' compressor product that didn't do as well as it could. All failed to sell and are not included in the long run in the very best rigs. The compressors on the top rigs are simply wanky.

The fact is the better we use the matched filter presented by our voice and ears, the better we cut through the QRM and QRN. Diversity on RX is key to that. Loudness on audio is key to that.

My opinions.

If the facts are wrong then get out there and enlighten me and others.

Thanks.

 

Dr. Scientist: I do think Rob Sherwood's actual four decades of RF bench tests on many of the important rigs in amateur radio IS more important than yours. Because it's not just his "opinions" but measurement and a continued integrity to provide them without commercial interests. Since that offends you, you might think about your work in this area versus one of the top three mostly highly regarded similar sources of actual RF bench tests here: Bob Allison at ARRL and Adam Farson AB4OJ. You can argue to the contrary here on QRZ's page but that won't put you in that circle. These are facts, above and beyond what you think about yourself.

Rob's QST paper stands in stark contrast to your statement about TX's are fine today. The best TX Rob says he's measurement is....decades old and manufactured by Collins! He clearly and ardently calls for better TX design and manufacture. You can have any opinion you want. But Rob's work will influence far more in the amateur radio manufacturing and consumer world that whatever Dr. Scientist puts on QRZ.com. Rob's measurements are, indeed, the facts that you say you go by. You can go with your own conclusions as an individual. I said as much to any listener of my talk (both to the Cycle 25 Hub and others) as it's always caveat emptor to the consumer.

But my study does give readers/viewers new information based upon three known elements of purchasing an RF rig: price, receive performance, and what others think about the rig. If anyone actually reads ALL of the eHam reviews on the set of rigs that Rob's highly regarded Tables contain---and I have, more than once---this is patently clear from the thousands of those who have volunteered a consistent rating and some narrative about their subjective feelings (you know, what you say you go by). My study helps narrow down a set of rigs to a narrower set for further study without having to juggle aggregate data compiled from existing sources. No study is perfect as I can attest to my several decades of publishing peer reviewed studies, being a reviewer of journal submissions, book proposals/manuscripts, and grant proposals at NSF, NASA, NIH and USDA. I pointed out what I feel are the key limitations. But hams actually use these three sources to make decisions so their validity may indeed not matter as, eHam in particular, is a factor in rig evaluation as many hams will state (or complain about, etc.).

You are entitled to your opinions...but not your own facts. As T.S. Elliot once wrote, Life is an endless struggle to think well of oneself. I see you're eminently successful.

 

I may have said in this talk to the Cycle 25 Hub (or another one for sure) that I enjoy my FT-891 greatly. It's in a Gator canvas case for wireless mic systems and fits perfectly. It does all I want it to do in a portable op at 100 watts or dialed down to QRP.

 

You've made the point, in terms of measured receive performance, that Rob Sherwood has made. One of the trend line charts in my talk has illustrated this pattern, along with some contributing factors, visually. The "best for you" question, as I noted in the talk and paper itself, is something that you indeed have to make in order to identify rigs optimized for what you find most useful. My conclusion to underscore this was that my study identified that price "should" be MORE related to performance and consumer satisfaction on the whole in terms of how hams writ large talk about rigs. But, while there's a positive link, it's far from dominant. What I call the feature set and ergonomics are not measured and won't be for this full set of rigs seems to make more of an impact on satisfaction averages here. Reading the narrative supports this as I read them all for these rigs, more than once. I think you're spot on and my study puts some numbers on that point.

 

Bryan,

I too have a Flex (6400 in my case) and a TS-590SG (as well as an IC-7300). My subjective experience is similar to yours. But my study puts a finder point on it regarding what you pay and what measured Rx performance you get. Your ease of operation gets into what I waved my arms about that is NOT in my dataset: features and ergonomics. Now that the Elgato Stream Deck USB device has a profile written for the SmartSDR software (perhaps others), these buttons right at your hand simplifies many Flex operations greatly. A recent Ham Radio Workbench podcast discussed this as both George and I have a 6400. My results put the Flex (among some others) right up there at the top margins for performance-for-price. I love my Kenwood though...my first rig was a TS-830S.

 

Doc,

Spot on...and very consistent with the results in my study that the talk was based upon. Elecraft (and Flex) entered at a prime point of the increase in Rx performance (and likely other features too although those were not in my dataset). Perhaps your explanation is as good as any from an historical viewpoint. But the technology that Eric and Gerald respectively were able to build upon were not tied to the R&D investments of the "Big Three" manufacturers. They've thus far traveled down different paths to very good success as far as my results suggest. But Flex has a bit of an education challenge in the ham market because it's computer intensive to go full-core SDR as they have. They left the Flex 3000/5000 platform because of the end-user choice of the "optimal" PC to use with it was a real issue...as was the demise of Firewire as a throughput channel...and the move in the 6000 Series to a Linux-based server for the ham client choice simplified many of those issues. The Maestro was their option to give you that client, too. But both are American-designed even though I am unsure of the OEM manufacturing for either company. It is surprising, albeit commonplace, for technically minded hams to seemingly avoid learning much more than appliance operation of PCs. This is where Flex has benefited from bringing on people like Mike Warner (also on the Ham Radio Workbench) with instructional videos and other materials. My study put a couple of the Flex rigs in what I call the Hot Rod category of top measured Rx performance, great performance-per-price, at a lower price point, but didn't get the love on eHam that, say, Elecraft did.