I was asked to post the message below to relevant lists.
Mike, K5XU
Dear Patrick Tice (Courage Handi-Hams) and Mike Duke (American Council of
Blind Radio Amateurs) --
When I heard about the new trail-friendly Elecraft KX1 transceiver, it
impressed me as a significant step forward for HF wilderness operation:
very small size, light-weight, wide input voltage range, controls on top,
coverage of the whole of the 40, 20 and (optionally 30) m bands (plus lots
of SWL spectrum), with the filtering specifically designed for CW/SSB
cross-mode operation, RF gain, AF gain, variable bandpass filtering, two
keyer memories with variable pause beacon capability, 4 frequency memories
per band (only 3 frequency memories are claimed in the specifications), etc.
I was then pleasantly surprised to learn that design engineer Wayne
Burdick also included a sophisticated audio interface for totally blind
amateurs, as well as a very bright and readable LED display which should be
an asset for blind amateurs with some visual ability. My review of the KX1
will appear in QST, probably in the April, 2004 issue.
I've now had two KX1 sessions with my long-time friend, Walter Hendrickson,
VE7BGJ, an excellent CW operator who has been totally blind since birth.
The first time around, Walter had trouble jarring the important encoder
knob, which is used for both tuning and menu operations. For our second
session, Walter tried the KX1 with a smaller encoder knob, and it worked
much better for him. At that second session, I forgot to bring my little
RadioShack speaker, so Walter hooked the KX1 up to a very large speaker, and
the audio quality was wonderful!
Through my company, Kairos Research, I am producing a 2-card laminated Quick
Guide for the KX1. If there is interest from the blind amateur radio
community, I will work with Northwest Braille Services to produce a Braille
version of the KX1 Quick Guide.
Wayne Burdick and Eric Swartz of Elecraft sent me the following message to
relay to Patrick. I thought Mike Duke would also be interested:
If Patrick is signed up for the Courage Center web site, perhaps he could
post
the following for us:
We hope the KX1 will prove easy and enjoyable to use by
blind hams. While the KX1 is available only as a kit, many of
our present customers will build our kits for blind hams
at no charge. Please let us know if there's anything we can do to
improve the readability of KX1 materials on our web site,
as well as our site's general accessibility.
73,
Wayne Burdick, N6KR
Eric Swartz, WA6HHQ
tnx
Wayne
Patrick and Mike, please feel free to post that message wherever you think
appropriate.
Thanks and 73,
J. Bruce Prior N7RR
Kairos Research
853 Alder Street
Blaine, WA 98230-8030
Telephone 360-332-6046
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