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I thought Elecraft was a household name!

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Nate Bargmann

I thought Elecraft was a household name!

I worked a station on 6m this morning who gave me a very nice and
unsolicited audio report and asked what radio I was running. I first
said it was a K3 and he replied that he was unfamiliar with that model
so I said "Elecraft K3" to which he asked how old it was. I replied
that I bought it in late 2010 as a kit. His reply amused me--"I didn't
know Hallicrafters was still in business!" I spelled out Elecraft and he
said he would have to Google that to see what it was all about.

By this point I had presumed all the active hams had heard of Elecraft.
Heh!

73, de Nate, N0NB >>

--

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true."

Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://www.n0nb.us
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Ken G Kopp

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

Actually, I've found more than a few who confuse "Elecraft" and
"Hallicrafters" ... especially "old timers". (:-))

73!

Ken - K0PP
[hidden email]

On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 4:38 PM, Nate Bargmann <[hidden email]> wrote:
> I worked a station on 6m this morning who gave me a very nice and
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Mike Markowski-2

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Nate Bargmann

I've given up correcting a ham I chat with on occasion who continues to
tell me how nice my Electro-craft rig sounds. :-)

73,
Mike ab3ap

On 07/15/2012 12:38 PM, Nate Bargmann wrote:
> [...] By this point I had presumed all the active hams had heard of Elecraft.
> Heh!
>
> 73, de Nate, N0NB >>
>

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Gary Gregory

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Nate Bargmann

*Nate,

Um, in 2007 I had never heard of Elecraft either. Come to think of it, I
thought I was told the wrong name and that it was Hallicrafter...:-(

Some of us ARE a bit slow on the uptake mate.

Now I own no other breed and the "Terrible Twins" at Elecraft are doing
their best to keep me poor!

Wonder what the 'next' must have gem will be, I shudder to think and my
bank balance keeps shrinking!

73

*
On 16 July 2012 02:38, Nate Bargmann <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I worked a station on 6m this morning who gave me a very nice and
> unsolicited audio report and asked what radio I was running. I first
> said it was a K3 and he replied that he was unfamiliar with that model
> so I said "Elecraft K3" to which he asked how old it was. I replied
> that I bought it in late 2010 as a kit. His reply amused me--"I didn't
> know Hallicrafters was still in business!" I spelled out Elecraft and he
> said he would have to Google that to see what it was all about.
>
> By this point I had presumed all the active hams had heard of Elecraft.
> Heh!
>
> 73, de Nate, N0NB >>
>
> --
>
> "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
> possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true."
>
> Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://www.n0nb.us
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>

--
*Gary*
*"If you don't know where you are going you will probably end up somewhere
else."*
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Phil Hystad-3

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

I think it is probably interesting how people discover Elecraft. I have
recommended Elecraft products to a few friends and almost in every
case the friend did not know about Elecraft. Of course, these guys
were older and maybe that had something to do with it. When I say
older, I obviously mean older then me -- still young at 64 3/4s.

I discovered Elecraft via my Norcal 40A kit. I discovered the Norcal
40A via the book "The Electronics of Radio" by Rutledge. I read the
book and built the 40A and then decided that the designer of this
radio was very talented. So, I started googling Wayne to find more
information about him and from that came across the Elecraft web site.
That was in the Fall of 2009. Now I own a complete K-line with the
KAT500 on order plus a KX1 and a variety of other Elecraft mini-kit
products.

73, phil, K7PEH

On Jul 15, 2012, at 10:10 AM, Gary Gregory wrote:

> *Nate,
>
> Um, in 2007 I had never heard of Elecraft either. Come to think of it, I
> thought I was told the wrong name and that it was Hallicrafter...:-(
>
> Some of us ARE a bit slow on the uptake mate.
>
> Now I own no other breed and the "Terrible Twins" at Elecraft are doing
> their best to keep me poor!
>
> Wonder what the 'next' must have gem will be, I shudder to think and my
> bank balance keeps shrinking!
>
> 73
>
> *
> On 16 July 2012 02:38, Nate Bargmann <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> I worked a station on 6m this morning who gave me a very nice and
>> unsolicited audio report and asked what radio I was running. I first
>> said it was a K3 and he replied that he was unfamiliar with that model
>> so I said "Elecraft K3" to which he asked how old it was. I replied
>> that I bought it in late 2010 as a kit. His reply amused me--"I didn't
>> know Hallicrafters was still in business!" I spelled out Elecraft and he
>> said he would have to Google that to see what it was all about.
>>
>> By this point I had presumed all the active hams had heard of Elecraft.
>> Heh!
>>
>> 73, de Nate, N0NB >>
>>
>> --
>>
>> "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
>> possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true."
>>
>> Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://www.n0nb.us
>> ______________________________________________________________
>> Elecraft mailing list
>> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
>> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
>> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>>
>> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
>> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>>
>
>
>
> --
> *Gary*
> *"If you don't know where you are going you will probably end up somewhere
> else."*
> ______________________________________________________________
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> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
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Gary Gregory

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Mike Markowski-2

*Mike,

Too funny

73
*
On 16 July 2012 03:05, Mike Markowski <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I've given up correcting a ham I chat with on occasion who continues to
> tell me how nice my Electro-craft rig sounds. :-)
>
> 73,
> Mike ab3ap
>
> On 07/15/2012 12:38 PM, Nate Bargmann wrote:
> > [...] By this point I had presumed all the active hams had heard of
> Elecraft.
> > Heh!
> >
> > 73, de Nate, N0NB >>
> >
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________
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>

Jim Low man

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Phil Hystad-3

Elecraft really got its start in the QRP circles, so I can understand
how other OTs
who are not interested in low-power operations may never have heard of them.

I first met Wayne and Eric at Pacificon, circa 1999, when they were
showing off
a prototype of the K2 at a presentation there. Since then, they would
be hard
to miss at a convention at their booth.

As an aside, Prof. Rutledge was one of the speakers at the Antenna Forum at
Pacificon. I attended his presentation and invited him to our
convention in
2001. He teaches at nearly Caltech in Pasadena, and requires his
students to
build a 40A as a class project. The book that you mentioned is the textbook
for this class.

Even today, with producing a 500w amplifier, Elecraft still offers the
base model
of all of its transceivers targeted at the QRP gang; even the K3.

72/73 de Jim - AD6CW

On 7/15/2012 10:28 AM, Phil Hystad wrote:

> I think it is probably interesting how people discover Elecraft. I have
> recommended Elecraft products to a few friends and almost in every
> case the friend did not know about Elecraft. Of course, these guys
> were older and maybe that had something to do with it. When I say
> older, I obviously mean older then me -- still young at 64 3/4s.
>
> I discovered Elecraft via my Norcal 40A kit. I discovered the Norcal
> 40A via the book "The Electronics of Radio" by Rutledge. I read the
> book and built the 40A and then decided that the designer of this
> radio was very talented. So, I started googling Wayne to find more
> information about him and from that came across the Elecraft web site.
> That was in the Fall of 2009. Now I own a complete K-line with the
> KAT500 on order plus a KX1 and a variety of other Elecraft mini-kit
> products.
>
> 73, phil, K7PEH
>

Gil G.

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Phil Hystad-3

I found Elecraft very easily, looking for kits online. Anyone doing a Google search on transceiver kits will find Elecraft immediately. Not to mention online forums or reviews such as on Eham. So, if they don't know about it, they either have no interest in kits, or are not very internet oriented.. With the introduction of the KX3, that might change, and Elecraft might become more of a Ham household name, which I also thought it was...

Now, I hope Elecraft doesn't discontinue the K2 before I can save up enough money to buy one.. I also wish they would come up with other small kits, like a single band cw/ssb transceiver that fits in a K1 box.. It would be a great competitor to the MFJ-94xx series. The K3 seems like a great radio, but I would never buy one. Why? Because it gets too complicated, and it is surface-mount. I like simple radios I can build and fix, with a soldering iron, not switching boards. The K2 still qualifies.

Gil.
--
http://radiopreppers.com
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Tony Estep

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Jim Low man

On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Jim Lowman <[hidden email]> wrote:

> ...I can understand how other OTs who are not interested in low-power
> operations may never have heard...

===========
Yeah, I'd say that's right. I belong to a DX club (www.mvdxcc.org) whose
membership includes 29 guys on the Honor Roll (over 330 countries
confirmed). Many if not most of those guys have the same FT1000D that they
got 20 years ago. When the ARRL's reviews began to emphasize dynamic range
and the little kit-built K2 showed up ahead of most of the standard DX
radios of the day, Elecraft suddenly appeared on the radar of some DXers.
But of course many held out for a dual-receiver radio.

The arrival of the K3 brought a burst of interest in our club; there are
now maybe a half-dozen members who have K3s. Some of those guys will never
get another radio in their lives, but among those who do, I would say that
the K3 is the first choice, even ahead of the FT5000DX. The members who
have K3s miss no opportunity to tout its excellent performance, easy
portability, great service and generally fine user experience. But it's a
slow process to win over the old-timers!

Tony KT0NY

--
http://www.isb.edu/faculty/facultydir.aspx?ddlFaculty=352
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Phil Hystad-3

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Gil G.

> I like simple radios I can build and fix, with a soldering iron, not switching boards.

I thought this (quoted above) was an interesting comment from Gil's message below. I think I like that too but I am not sure if that world of simplicity can continue very much longer. In fact, in some ways, it is already history.

When I got started in this hobby everything was absolutely discrete. Every affect on the electrons in circuits was controlled by individual passive or active (?) devices. Resistors, capacitors, inductors, transformers, and electron tubes. Even the electron tube although at times complicated was simple enough that I could understand the basic principles and operations as a 10 year old. I liked that idea of understanding and maybe even of control.

Today, surface mount is not the issue -- that is just a refined way of making physical contact of conductors. The issue is that devices, many of them, are no longer discrete. ICs and Op Amps are everywhere even if you don't include processors like PIC or DSP or whatever. Building a radio today, even if it is directly soldered (as opposed to SMT) is made a lot easier because of various ICs (from the simple like a voltage regulator to something more complex) and use of Op Amps instead of simple discrete based amplifiers and so on.

The notion of build and fix has changed too. A friend of mine repairs radios (Yaesu's, Icoms, etc.) and I have heard him several times failing to repair a particular radio because some application specific IC used in the radio is no longer available. That kills it right there. No way to repair that unless you build your own version of the function (or functions) performed by the IC.

Therefore, I think kit building has evolved and I think that the way Elecraft has pushed kit building is a good thing because you get a lot of features and functionalities in a "kit" without having to wire up zillions of discrete components. But, I like the kits like the KX1, K1, and K2 as well and they too have a place but the "kit" idea is different for sure. The K3 as a kit is useful because adding options is useful and valuable or maybe changing out a re-engineered board. Having built the kit gives you experience in digging into the guts of a K3. Having a kit because I can repair it though is not of much value to me and I think that is mainly because in all my years of building kits, I have never had to re-open it up to repair a failed part. It just never happened (although, I admit to not owning such radios for decades).

peh

On Jul 15, 2012, at 11:46 AM, Gil G. wrote:

> I found Elecraft very easily, looking for kits online. Anyone doing a Google search on transceiver kits will find Elecraft immediately. Not to mention online forums or reviews such as on Eham. So, if they don't know about it, they either have no interest in kits, or are not very internet oriented.. With the introduction of the KX3, that might change, and Elecraft might become more of a Ham household name, which I also thought it was...
>
> Now, I hope Elecraft doesn't discontinue the K2 before I can save up enough money to buy one.. I also wish they would come up with other small kits, like a single band cw/ssb transceiver that fits in a K1 box.. It would be a great competitor to the MFJ-94xx series. The K3 seems like a great radio, but I would never buy one. Why? Because it gets too complicated, and it is surface-mount. I like simple radios I can build and fix, with a soldering iron, not switching boards. The K2 still qualifies.
>
> Gil.
> --
> http://radiopreppers.com
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Mike Sanders

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Tony Estep

Tony there are a few members of MVDXCC down in SWMO
who are only too familiar with Elecraft. One of our guys is a
cheerleading owner of the FT5000 and has just received a "new"
K3. He is impressed at first impression stage but will need
more time to make a real evaluation of it for himself. Myself
and one other Elecraft/MVDXCC guy both are saving our nickels and
dimes for a K3. I am even selling off a lot of stuff surplus to
today's needs and will eventually have a K3 to go with 2 K2s
and a K1.
When someone says Mike was/is impressed others ask the
question "WHAT!!!???" I made comment yesterday at our regular
Saturday morning breakfast that in the last year or two I have
been impressed several times. Then added each time it was
due to an Elecraft product performance.
One of the Hogs gave me my Novice test back in early 59.
You will know him as GSV from W0 buro fame. So even some
OTs can appreciate a winner. Elecraft has been around long
enough to not be an upstart any more. They have been around
long enough to give us pride in another American company.
In the upcoming pile ups if you hear me in there banging away
it will be using an Elecraft. Once said many moons ago "If you
can't hear em you can't work em". Now days I hear em better
with my trusty Elecraft K2. I am told the K3 is even better.
I don't think the guys who are Elecraft fans are a cult. I think
they are folks who can appreciate success. I know I do.
GL in the pileups Tony. Tell all the Hogs up there hi for us
down here. 73, Mike

Mike Sanders
KOAZ

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]]On Behalf Of Tony Estep
Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2012 14:12 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] I thought Elecraft was a household name!

On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Jim Lowman <[hidden email]> wrote:

> ...I can understand how other OTs who are not interested in low-power
> operations may never have heard...

===========
Yeah, I'd say that's right. I belong to a DX club (www.mvdxcc.org) whose
membership includes 29 guys on the Honor Roll (over 330 countries
confirmed). Many if not most of those guys have the same FT1000D that they
got 20 years ago. When the ARRL's reviews began to emphasize dynamic range
and the little kit-built K2 showed up ahead of most of the standard DX
radios of the day, Elecraft suddenly appeared on the radar of some DXers.
But of course many held out for a dual-receiver radio.

The arrival of the K3 brought a burst of interest in our club; there are
now maybe a half-dozen members who have K3s. Some of those guys will never
get another radio in their lives, but among those who do, I would say that
the K3 is the first choice, even ahead of the FT5000DX. The members who
have K3s miss no opportunity to tout its excellent performance, easy
portability, great service and generally fine user experience. But it's a
slow process to win over the old-timers!

Tony KT0NY

--
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MontyS

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Jim Low man

Sorry, gotta comment about my other hobby, HO model railroading.

PICs and memory chips have invaded with startling effect. I had to replace a dual-in-line 8 -pin surface mount chip with wide spacing ( a DC motor driver) and had no problem. Other RR guys don't know how to spell DIP.

Thank you, Elecraft, for encouraging me to master this task.

Monty K2DLJ

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ve3dvy

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Nate Bargmann

Elecraft a house hold name? Not so! Only a few months ago when I
mentioned that I had bought an Elecraft K3 at a club meeting I would
say that half of the group had a blank "what?" look. only a few knew
of the K3 and only a few more had even heard of Elecraft.
Elecraft does not advertise in The Canadian Amateur, our national
magazine here ( Eric, hint Hint). I think that there are many Canadian
hams that have never heard of Elecraft.

On 7/15/2012 12:38 PM, Nate Bargmann wrote:

Tom McCulloch

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Nate Bargmann

This sounds like the type of QSO we have on the SOC list (Second Class
op) all of the time!...hi
Tom
wb2qdg
K@ 1#1103

On 7/15/2012 12:38 PM, Nate Bargmann wrote:

Gil G.

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Phil Hystad-3

On Jul 15, 2012, at 3:23 PM, Phil Hystad wrote:

> I think I like that too but I am not sure if that world of simplicity can continue very much longer. In fact, in some ways, it is already history.

Well, it's not the complexity of the circuits I am mainly referring to, but also the complexity due to the number of features available. If I need to read a manual and keep it handy to use a radio, I lose interest. I love my K1 because there aren't too many menus, and just enough features to make it performant without being overwhelming. There seems to be a features race going on among manufacturers. Elecraft did great with the K1 and K2, because they designed better radios, not average ones with more gizmos. The K3 has the performance, and the bells and whistles. Not everyone likes extra bells and whistles… That's why I wish the K2 and K1 don't go away. All I need is a volume button, tune, and band switch. Some of the kits I've built don't even have as much. You can build a very complex automated machine to drive a nail in a plank, but at the end of the day, all it takes is still a simple hammer. If you enjoy hammering, so much the better, and the hammer will do fine.. Operating a nailing machine, that's a different hobby.. That's why I embrace the QRP concept, which I see as a return to the essence and practicality of radio.

I think Elecraft has two kinds of customers: The QRP/portable/kit crowd, and the contest/performance/features crowd. Both crowds like the quality and are willing to spend extra for it, myself included. The former wants simple, less features, the later wants more. I hope the company will not transform itself into something like Yaesu and forget the type of customers they started with. I am not implying they have, just concerned..

My hat is off to Elecraft for building a great product in the United States. One more reason to buy from them.

Gil.
--
http://radiopreppers.com
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Nick Kennedy

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Tom McCulloch

I still can't get myself to pronounce the name correctly. For me it's
L-Craft.

Elecraft oughta be pretty well known at least on the CW segments, since
I seem to work a lot of them on the air. And more recently, a lot of
guys who either have a KX3 or (more often) have one on order.

73-

Nick, WA5BDU

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Larry W2LJ

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

On 7/15/2012 6:18 PM, Nick-WA5BDU wrote:
> I still can't get myself to pronounce the name correctly. For me it's
> L-Craft.
>

Ele as in "Elegant"!

Larry W2LJ

--
73 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

http://w2lj.blogspot.com/
http://www.w2lj.qrpradio.com/

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NZ0T

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Nate Bargmann

Last winter I was in a group on 160 phone away from the frequency I'm normally on. The group, which was made up of old timers, included a couple of guys who had new TS-590s. When I explained that I was running the Elecraft K3 they had no idea what it was even after I explained that the 590 was generally considered to be a copy of the K3.

But that's OK as Elecraft is doing very in a bad economy and I selfishly would rather have them spend money on product development and improvement rather than on advertising to the general ham population.

73 Bill NZ0T

Don Wilhelm-4

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Gil G.

Gil,

I think you are alluding to troubleshooting and repair to the component
level vs. replacement of a board.
Unfortunately, the days of replacement at the component level are
disappearing fast. I too look at a circuit board with SMD and my first
reaction is "if I just could figure out which component is failing ...".
Well, that failing component is "the board" rather than a specific
component on the board.

We went through a similar transition when discrete circuits were being
replaced by Integrated circuits.
We are not going to go backwards in the semiconductor arena. It is fun
to build from discrete components and it is informative to those leaning
about electrical circuits, but from a production standpoint, those days
are past. There are already many components in the K2 that are not
available in through-hole devices. Witness the speech compressor on the
KSB2 board, the IF amplifier in the K2, and the Schottky diode used at
D36 on the bottom of the K2 RF board which has been replaced by an SMD
component on a carrier board.

Elecraft has gone great strides in countering the gaps left by
"disappearing devices", but who knows how much longer they can hold on.

The current situation for the KSB2 board is that if the speech amplifier
fails, a new bare board must be ordered and the components from the old
board can be mounted on the new board. That is OK for those who have a
good desoldering tool, but for those who do not, it usually means
ordering a new KSB2 kit.

There are other K2 parts that are obsolete, but only available from
Elecraft such as the PLL IC. That IC does not fail very often. but if it
fails in your K2, the stock at Elecraft is the only possibility that I
can find to replace it - when that source runs dry, you are out of
luck. This is not an unusual scenerio, and is one reason manufacturers
will discontinue support for a product.

I must applaud Elecraft because instead of dropping support, the KSB2
was re-designed to use an alternative speech processor, and a carrier
board was developed for the IF amplifier. However, there is a practical
limit to what can be done - we may someday reach that decision point,
but so far, the folks at Elecraft have decided to take the more
difficult route and provide an alternative for that :disappearing
component. Thank you Wayne and Eric.

73,
Don W3FPR
On 7/15/2012 6:14 PM, Gil G. wrote:

> On Jul 15, 2012, at 3:23 PM, Phil Hystad wrote:
>
>> I think I like that too but I am not sure if that world of simplicity can continue very much longer. In fact, in some ways, it is already history.
> Well, it's not the complexity of the circuits I am mainly referring to, but also the complexity due to the number of features available. If I need to read a manual and keep it handy to use a radio, I lose interest. I love my K1 because there aren't too many menus, and just enough features to make it performant without being overwhelming. There seems to be a features race going on among manufacturers. Elecraft did great with the K1 and K2, because they designed better radios, not average ones with more gizmos. The K3 has the performance, and the bells and whistles. Not everyone likes extra bells and whistles… That's why I wish the K2 and K1 don't go away. All I need is a volume button, tune, and band switch. Some of the kits I've built don't even have as much. You can build a very complex automated machine to drive a nail in a plank, but at the end of the day, all it takes is still a simple hammer. If you enjoy hammering, so much the better, and the hammer will do fine.. Operating a nailing machine, that's a different hobby.. That's why I embrace the QRP concept, which I see as a return to the essence and practicality of radio.
>
> I think Elecraft has two kinds of customers: The QRP/portable/kit crowd, and the contest/performance/features crowd. Both crowds like the quality and are willing to spend extra for it, myself included. The former wants simple, less features, the later wants more. I hope the company will not transform itself into something like Yaesu and forget the type of customers they started with. I am not implying they have, just concerned..
>
> My hat is off to Elecraft for building a great product in the United States. One more reason to buy from them.
>
> Gil.
> --
> http://radiopreppers.com
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N0AZZ

Re: I thought Elecraft was a household name!

In reply to this post by Tony Estep

Tony

Add another MVDX/CC SW MO Chapter to your K3 count as of last week. I have a
K2 and have a FTDX-5000MP for well over 2 1/2 yrs all now including the K3
will all have a place on my operating desk for sure. If there KX3 ever
catches up with back orders I may very consider one of those also.

Fred/N0AZZ

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Tony Estep
Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2012 2:12 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] I thought Elecraft was a household name!

On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Jim Lowman <[hidden email]> wrote:

> ...I can understand how other OTs who are not interested in low-power
> operations may never have heard...

===========
Yeah, I'd say that's right. I belong to a DX club (www.mvdxcc.org) whose
membership includes 29 guys on the Honor Roll (over 330 countries
confirmed). Many if not most of those guys have the same FT1000D that they
got 20 years ago. When the ARRL's reviews began to emphasize dynamic range
and the little kit-built K2 showed up ahead of most of the standard DX
radios of the day, Elecraft suddenly appeared on the radar of some DXers.
But of course many held out for a dual-receiver radio.

The arrival of the K3 brought a burst of interest in our club; there are now
maybe a half-dozen members who have K3s. Some of those guys will never get
another radio in their lives, but among those who do, I would say that the
K3 is the first choice, even ahead of the FT5000DX. The members who have K3s
miss no opportunity to tout its excellent performance, easy portability,
great service and generally fine user experience. But it's a slow process to
win over the old-timers!

Tony KT0NY

--
http://www.isb.edu/faculty/facultydir.aspx?ddlFaculty=352
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