I recently acquired a FA-VA5 antenna analyser.
Whilst preparing A first test of the FA-VA5 antenna analyser, issues were noticed with the user interface design / implementation. I stated in a later article that The matter of the clumsy / unproductive user interface will be explored more at a later time.
This article introduces a short video demonstration of the frustrating / unreliable user interface (UI) in firmware v1.08 where buttons do not seem to operate intuitively and consistently.
The video shows that whilst the up down buttons seem to work reliably and consistently in ‘menu’ mode, they do not do so when trying to adjust the frequency.
The buttons appear intermittent, but in fact there is nothing wrong with the buttons as evidence by scrolling the menu, the firmware has created the unreliable / inconsistent operation.
I wrote to the developer about perceived defects with the UI, and was less than encouraged by the response, though some of the easier points were listed for the next firmware release (whenever that might be). The matter shown in the video is not currently on the to be fixed sometime list.
This article focusses on just one defect of the UI, there are others.
Conclusions
The UI is frustrating to use, especially in poor lighting conditions (eg with glare).