About the topic of Elecraft & Unfinished radio's:
Is the K3 a finished product?
A company offering an open mind to users for improvement on its designs
will never be selling finished equipment.
This is not a weakness but may be one of the biggest qualities of Elecraft
products as well as the company. Elecraft is constantly flooded with user
input, sometimes even attacked or criticized on their designs but meanwhile
is putting out a flagship radio with flagship qualities at a fraction of
competitors' prices. Besides this, a wealth of products are available that
are right-on-target for hamradio enthusiasts, endorsing the experiment.
Hands-On Ham Radio works on both sides. The makers are constantly "hands-on"
listening to users, refining their designs and inventing new circuits on the
go. The users are using their equipment "hands-on" and know exactly what is
going on under the hood. This is a big virtue in hamradio, being an
experimental hobby. I think Elecraft is very important and quite unique in
this approach.
Why have a large R&D team if you can canalise a wealth of knowledge that is
already there amongst your users? In this way many hands are "hands-on".I
think the Elecraft team is managing this user input wonderfully well and has
some excellent inventive brains leading the way. The K3 is (and has been
from the beginning) a remarkable radio that I'm sure caused quite a few
frowns in the far east...
Is the K3 not ready yet? That depends on how you look at it. If you want to
sit back and communicate, the K3 is offering all you need and a whole lot
more. If you are a "hands on" user there is a lot to explore in improving
certain aspects of the K3. A lot of functionality and expandability is left
open for the user and your input in reflector is handled with attention. On
this path you will get to know the K3 in detail, learn a lot about modern RF
design in general and will be doing a lot of interesting experimentation.
This is an extra dimension no other tranceiver has to offer. I'm happy to
have also invested in this software-for-the-mind that is a part of Elecraft
products.
"Hands-on" is what hamradio is all about.
I'm very glad the K3 is not finshed yet, hope it never will be :-)
73'
Paul
PD0PSB
Normally I speak Dutch
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