[hpsdr] SDR Cost Comparisons vs Hermes

[Steven B. Dick]

I was very excited when I first saw the Hermes concept.  I waited several
years for the Hermes to come to fruition.  While waiting, I build a softrock
emsemble RxTx, a softrock Ensemble II receiver, a homebrew 50 watt amp from
the ARRL homebrew challenge, a penywhistle 20 watt amp, a LPF from the HF
packer amp 4, and several other small projects.  When I saw the expected
price of the Hermes, I was fairly disappointed.  One can argue about
component costs, etc but the real question is how is it going to do in the
marketplace?
 
For about the same cost, you will soon be able to purchase an Elecraft KX3
(base model) that is a much better value for about the same price.  Not as
high performance but certainly excellent performance, already packaged,
self-contained processing, built-in amp, built in filters, nicely packaged,
extremely low power in receive for portable operation, etc.
 
All of the high end SDR transceivers or receivers appear to be in the same
price class and and, IMHO not a vary good value compared to conventional
transceivers from the big three and you have to do your own packaging and
add another module and a package around it
 
I just recently purchased and built a Genesis Radio G11 which is a 5 band
QSD and QSE SDR transceiver semi-kit for $299.
This is one of the best values in an SDR transceiver I have ever come
across.  It has excellent performance, all LPF and BPFs built in, 10 watt
amplifier built in.  Never had so much fun and learning with SDR equipment.
 
If you want very high performance on a single module (plus presumably amp
module) then go for it.  But I liken this to the photography world.  Some
photographers go out there with a "prosumer" camera and take thousands of
pictures.  Other photographers buy the most expensive camera they can buy,
then spend their time on the few pictures they take blowing them up to 100
percent resolution and marvel at the quality of the individual pixels and
bragging about how great their camera is.
 
I don't mean to sound negative.  The Hermes is a great technological
achievement and my hat is off to the design team for getting this difficult
design to successful fruition. I can appreciate this difficult achievement
as I am an EE by trade and can appreciate the difficulties getting high
dynamic range, low spurious performance.  But ultimately the marketplace
will determine its success.
 
Regards to all.
"Digital Steve", K1RF  
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