New Elecraft stuff...

[Brett Gazdzinski]

I hope Elecraft continues to make new kits, not the screw it together type
like the K3, but the kits you build from a big pile of parts.
After all, the surface mount stuff will kill any real kit building before
you know it, and I have built all the Elecraft kits, some twice.

I for one would buy and build anything Elecraft would make as soon as I
could afford it, the more they make, the more I would buy.

My dream rig is a 100 watt, all mode, large rig version of the K2 with lots
of knobs and displays, made up of lots of toroids to wind, and many
transistors to mount to heat sinks!

I don't know anything about the Elecraft business model, but I sure wish
they would expand and put out loads of new kits of all sorts.

Brett
N2DTS

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[Vic K2VCO]

Brett Gazdzinski wrote:
> I hope Elecraft continues to make new kits, not the screw it together type
> like the K3, but the kits you build from a big pile of parts.
> After all, the surface mount stuff will kill any real kit building before
> you know it, and I have built all the Elecraft kits, some twice.

I know how you feel. I recently bought a W1 wattmeter. I sort of needed another wattmeter,
but really I wanted to sit down, turn on some classical music, and solder parts to a neat
little board. I still get a kick when something I build works, even if it is a
well-planned kit!

I've built some stuff with surface mount parts. It's not so hard, although it's annoying
when something goes flying. They seem to enter the 4th dimension before landing. I always
keep some surface-mount diodes, resistors, and caps handy; hopefully the one that vanishes
will be a common one.

One thing that Elecraft can do is supply boards with multi-pin surface-mount parts already
attached, and you can add through-hole components to finish it. They didn't do this with
the K3 because of the difficulty of testing the partially-populated boards -- at least, I
think this was the reason -- but it's practical with simpler kits.
--
73,
Vic, K2VCO
Fresno CA
http://www.qsl.net/k2vco
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[AD6XY]

Of course they will continue to support those who like to build things. At some point we are all going to have to embrace surface mount components simply because tradiotional parts will be difficult to get. It is not so bad, I now find repairing surface mount projects easier than through hole ones.

The K3 is simply too advanced to be home built by most people and I understnd why it is more of an assembly kit than a solering kit. There is still the K2 available, the transverters and the new W2 power meter.  Once you have exausted Elecraft there are many other things to build - for example equipment for the microwave bands from DEMI, Linear amplifiers from CCI, network analysers from SDR-Kits and many others.  I don't think the oportunities for amateur kit building have ever been as good as they are at the moment.

Mike

Brett Gazdzinski wrote

I hope Elecraft continues to make new kits, not the screw it together type
like the K3, but the kits you build from a big pile of parts.
After all, the surface mount stuff will kill any real kit building before
you know it, and I have built all the Elecraft kits, some twice.

Brett
N2DTS

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[AC7AC]

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