It was announced on the Orlando hamcation forum that basically there being the very few that are being shipped are running a Beta version software/ they said they still have a lot of tweaks to make/ like the diversity receive.
From this thread I get the impression that Elecraft isn’t keeping those who made a deposit well informed. I hope that I am wrong about that...
In the meantime you can't get a K3s anymore...I think that's a big mistake, but then again they didn't ask me so whatever.
As I understand it the K4 only beats the K3 when you add the dual superhet module for about another $1000
I’m still trying to figure out how someone determined it doesn’t “beat” another radio - I thought the theme here was complaining about not yet being able to do that.
One radio beat another? If you want to boil it down to one parameter, look at where a rig sits on Sherwood Engineering's list. The top radios on that list are separated by very little, not much more than the accuracy of the testing. However, there are many many other characteristics that come into play comparing one radio against another. All good HF radios have plenty of RF sensitivity. In these radios received band noise dominates the rigs noise floor, so "atmospheric" noise is what limits sensitivity, not which rig you're using. Narrow IF filters reduce the bandwidth of the noise, but all decent HF rigs have very good IF filters. Perhaps what differentiates rigs more nowadays is how their DSPs deal with band noise. There are differences in effectiveness, and also in how pleasant or unpleasant the resulting sound is. There are also ergonomic factors. If the UI is such that it's more difficult to make changes you often make, or leads you to make errors, or even increases the chance you'll brush the VFO inadvertently, that's less than idea. In extremely crowded condx with very very big nearby sigs, then the fundamental RX performance measures (bdr, IP3, etc.) do come into play, but that's so rare for me it's hardly worth considering.
I believe the last thing you mention...ergonomics...is what mostly differentiates rigs in the same "tier" these days. And even then it's often that what you are used to is the "best."
All deposits are refundable. It’s clearly stated on their website. Can you name one person who asked Elecraft for a refund and was denied? If not, stop making crap up.
I know that I prefer the Icom DSP and menu system over others, because I am used to it, and it makes sense to me. I don't care for Yaesu's menu system, it seems clunky. Yaesu's noise blanking is very good, but the menu system is the most non intuitive I have used. The Icom system is laid out more like a series of apps. I am OK with Kenwood, although, they're menu system is a bit quirky, to me anyway, but I like the performance of the new TS-890. As far as performance goes, I don't think anyone makes radios with poor performance anymore, except for Baofeng.
