Re: Big Rigs?
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>In a message dated 9/6/07 9:46:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[hidden email] writes: >I do wonder what Elecraft could come up with if size, weight, and power consumption were not an issue. So do I. But those factors are always an issue. Even back in "Big Rig" days, they were an issue. They were one reason ham gear used to be so expensive (in inflation-adjusted dollars). >It would likely be a rig I would really like, as there are plenty of small rigs out there. Sure - they're small for good reasons. Like cost control. >They don’t need to go head to head with the major manufacturers if they don’ t want to, they can sell what they sell and how they want to sell it, and be as big or as little as they want. They seem to like rigs which are just big enough to do the job. Elecraft has never really gone head-to-head with the other manufacturers. That's the secret of their success: They offer things the others do not, and so capture a market the others have neglected. For example, compare the receiver power drain of other multiband multimode HF rigs with that of a K2 - even one that's fully loaded. The difference may not seem like much until you have to carry the batteries to power the rig for an extended period! Yet the K2 receiver outperforms other rigs that are as small and much more expensive. And no matter what goes wrong with any Elecraft product, you can get exact replacement parts at very reasonable prices and *FREE* technical help direct from the factory, turned around in a matter of hours. >My guess is they want to sell zillions of K3's though, with all he jetting around to hamfests. >How many is "zillions"? The amateur radio market is actually very small. Not only are we hams relatively few, but our rigs tend to last a very long time. Many years ago, Electric Radio magazine carried a listing of all the different models of EF Johnson ever produced, and the number of each model. I was amazed at how *few* of them were made! No wonder they were so expensive - the engineering and tooling costs had to spread out over relatively few units. >If the K4 was twice the size of the K3, and had four times the knobs and buttons on it, and had the K3 performance, I bet they would sell even more of them then K3's, at a higher price. In order to have four times the knobs and buttons you'd need four times the panel area. That means a rig that's a *lot* bigger! I don't know how many more they would sell, or even if they would sell more, because the price of such a "K4" would be much, much higher. Making a rig bigger increases not only the cost of the parts but also the cost of shipping, storing, packaging, etc., and all those things add to the sale price. Consider just the storage space needed for 100 K2 kits compared to say, 100 DX-100 kits. Miniaturization is one factor that has made it possible for small companies to succeed by reducing overhead on things like shipping and storage. There's also the factor of how the controls actually work. In "classic" design, a control directly varies something. For example, in a conventional rig, the tuning knob varies an inductor or capacitor by means of the tuning mechanism, and that varying inductor or capacitor changes the oscillator frequency. The K1 comes close to this by using a varactor/potentiometer combo. This method is entirely hardware-dependent. But in "modern" rig design, many if not all of the functions are controlled by microcontroller(s) in the rig, and the knob is simply an input to the microcontroller. In the K2, turning the tuning knob operates an optical encoder whose outputs are interpreted by a microcontroller, which then tells the synthesizer what to do in order to change frequency. This method permits the same variable (rig frequency) to be controlled by a number of methods, as determined by software/firmware, not hardware, and permits all sorts of features, ranging from direct frequency input by keypad to computer control to memories. The problem with "modern" control is that the microcontroller has only so many inputs and outputs. Each knob, button or indicator uses up an I/O point, as well as requiring the hardware. In order to have four times as many knobs and buttons, a "K4" would need four times as many I/O points as well as the knobs, buttons and wiring. >I don’t see why Elecraft could not get very large in short order, as no one has the range and performance they do, kits, small rigs, top end performing rigs, medium size rigs, backpack rigs, antenna tuners, amplifiers, and with the K4, big deluxe rigs. I'm not sure what you mean by "get very large". Do you mean the company or their products? If you mean the company, there are all sorts of problems associated with too-fast growth. Many good companies have been damaged or even destroyed by trying to grow too fast. Better to grow in a sustainable, well-controlled way. This is particularly important when high product quality is important. There's an old saying in engineering: Quick, cheap, good: Pick any two. If you mean you want the products to be larger, note the factors I mentioned above. How much more are you willing to pay for a "K4"? Would you pay twice as much as a K3 costs? 1.5 times as much? I have thought about taking a K2 and fabricating a new, larger front panel with bigger knobs and buttons, and putting the K2 insides in a bigger cabinet. There's no reason I can see that it couldn't be done. But it's a lot of work, mostly mechanical, and would take a considerable investment of time and resources. >I hope they will expand and bring out more products faster, while reducing the individual workload so they don’t burn out. I do too. But the rigs do not design or fabricate themselves. And as the complexity grows, the design/fabrication workload grows exponentially. I know you like the big old rigs of yesteryear, particularly their "user interface". But remember how much they cost in their time, even though things like labor and space were much less expensive. An R-390 may not seem "miniaturized", but for an early-1950s design it was very small for what it did. Look at what one cost new, too! There's also the fact that the existing Elecraft product line isn't going away, and needs to be supported all through this time. It should also be remembered that the other Elecraft rigs did not come out "all at once".First the basic rig hit the market, and then the accessories came along one or two at a time. That spread out the development work and cost. But the K3 is being offered with almost all the features at the same time, and most of them built-in. That's a much bigger project. If Collins Radio, at the height of their success and with all their experiences and resources, had such problems with the introduction of the KWM-2 as described in that article, it's not surprising that the K3 has taken a bit longer than originally projected. Quick, cheap, good: Pick any two. 73 de Jim, N2EY ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com |
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I am so glad the day has arrived that the rigs are small enough to fit in
the car and light enough to carry from the den to the family room. My SX101 and HT32B had to have their own Desk with shelves for the other equipment, and the KW (now in the garage gathering dust) is in a 19 in. rack 4 ft high and on wheels). If we lead our lives in reverse order it might work out to grow the equipment, but the Yaesus and Icoms on the high end are only larger to handle an unapproachable number of smaller and smaller buttons. Personally the smaller rigs are not convenient because they rely more on pushing programming which gets harder to remember as we get older and the rigs diversify. The ability to preset the K rigs to pre configured settings is a great help and I find their size to be a reasonable compromise. My Ft-100 and IC-7000 push it a little over the line. Al WA6VNN ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com |
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In reply to this post by N2EY
[hidden email] wrote:
> > If you mean the company, there are all sorts of problems associated with > too-fast growth. Many good companies have been damaged or even destroyed by trying There are also problems associated with growth at any rate. The biggest of these is that it generally forces you either to become a B2B (business to business) company or a mass market company, neither of which are compatible with supporting niche consumer products. It also tends to result in extreme industrialisation of the support process, i.e. the use of low skilled staff working from scripts. > > There's also the fact that the existing Elecraft product line isn't going > away, and needs to be supported all through this time. However, if the company becomes too big, the venture capitalists' management consultants will almost certainly insist that support for it is dropped, as it is incompatible with the high volume, mass market organisation that you need to be big. (That will also happen if the company gets taken over.) Although the analogy isn't perfect, consider Apple, which was built on the basis of Steve Wozniak's ability to play tricks with minimal hardware, but he dropped out in favour of Steve Jobs when it got big, and what one now has is essentially a fashion, rather than engineering, based company. Big companies can't compete with Elecraft because they are big companies! -- David Woolley Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want. RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam, that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work. _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com |
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In reply to this post by N2EY
In a message dated 9/9/07 1:41:29 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[hidden email] writes: > [hidden email] wrote: > > > Many good companies have been damaged or even destroyed by trying > (to grow too fast) > There are also problems associated with growth at any rate. The biggest > of these is that it generally forces you either to become a B2B > (business to business) company or a mass market company, neither of > which are compatible with supporting niche consumer products. It also > tends to result in extreme industrialisation of the support process, > i.e. the use of low skilled staff working from scripts. > The trick is to stay just big enough to do the job. > > > There's also the fact that the existing Elecraft product line isn't going > > away, and needs to be supported all through this time. > > However, if the company becomes too big, the venture capitalists' > management consultants will almost certainly insist that support for it > is dropped, as it is incompatible with the high volume, mass market > organisation that you need to be big. (That will also happen if the > company gets taken over.) > Which means keeping the company just big enough to do the job. Also, most small companies that succeed were founded by folks who have the right mix of business and product/design smarts. Too often, if a company grows too fast, the founders wind up leaving the product/design stuff to others because of the business demands. > Although the analogy isn't perfect, consider Apple, which was built on > the basis of Steve Wozniak's ability to play tricks with minimal > hardware, but he dropped out in favour of Steve Jobs when it got big, > and what one now has is essentially a fashion, rather than engineering, > based company. > Sure. But consider what has happened to PC hardware, particularly processors and RAM. The price has imploded while the performance has exploded. The need for machines that can do a lot with limited hardware is limited to special applications now. > Big companies can't compete with Elecraft because they are big companies! > > Exactly 73 de Jim, N2EY ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com |
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