Elecraft

Re: Competition for Elecraft???

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Dave G.

Re: Competition for Elecraft???

Loyalty is a great thing and is to be admired, but to keep
things in comparative and fair perspective...

A fully loaded K2/100 with K2DSP and the external tuner is
$1662 in kit form.

And not forgetting that the K2 does NOT have a built in
expandable PC with a USB I/O port...flash upgradeable.

As for being semi-built... we have a fair number of gentlemen
who will, and do, build K2's for users..

I would think the Sienna is aimed at a different market than
the traditional Elecraft'er.. possibly the digitally inclined
Ham ??

I have now donned my asbestos suit :^\

Dave KK7SS

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Craig Rairdin

RE: Re: Competition for Elecraft???

This thread is getting repetitive (price being the main objection) but for
the purpose of improving future Elecraft designs its worth noting that
embedding a PC is a Bad Thing. For one thing, the 1GHz PC in the Sienna is
already obsolete due to the lengthy design and manufacturing time associated
with the rest of the radio. I bought a 2GHz PC last weekend for $299. I bet
you pay more than that for the older technology in the Sienna.

The only time it makes sense is if there's a fully integrated software
package that controls the user interface and hides the fact that it's really
an XP machine in the box. And even then you could accomplish the same thing
using the cheaper Windows Embedded or even Linux OS.

For example, the multi-function display in my airplane that shows traffic,
weather radar, lightning strikes, and moving map is really a Windows NT
computer running a program that takes over the system when it boots up. I
don't care how much memory is in it and I have no idea how fast the
processor is. It just works. If there was something like that in a radio I
suppose I wouldn't care.

Personally, I'd rather have a great software suite already in the radio
rather than loading up an embedded computer with a bunch of freeware and
letting me pick from among lots of mediocre options. I mean, you don't give
me a piece of aluminum and tell me to punch holes for the buttons wherever I
want. You design the front panel to optimize space usage, usability, parts
placement, etc. I would expect the radio designer to do the same with the
software. I wouldn't, for example, want to have to go to several places on
the Web to download the software that runs the various controllers in the K2
and have to pick my preference from among several programs, some free and
some for sale.

All that said, I would love it if the K3 had a nice LCD color display with a
bandscope, CW/RTTY/PSK/etc. coder/decoder built in, ability to display both
A and B freqs at the same time, etc. And in true Elecraft tradition it
should have a probe built in that I could move to various places so I could
use the built-in display as an oscilloscope and logic analyzer for signal
tracing. Not that I've ever made a mistake that required signal tracing, but
it would be cool. (In my best Homer Simpson voice: "mmmmmmm, technology for
its own sake!".)

Craig
NZ0R
K1 #1966
K2/100 #4941

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Simon (HB9DRV)

Re: Re: Competition for Elecraft???

----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Rairdin" <[hidden email]>

All that said, I would love it if the K3 had a nice LCD color display...
---

Two things:

[1] Competition is good - it makes the market place bigger and draws more
people in. DZ will attract people to this aspect of the hobby, some will
naturally levitate towards Elecraft.

[2] One thing that has crossed my mind is for a radio such as the K3 (or K4
...) to be bootable from either of two EPROM's, one with the manufacturer's
code, the other with your own. This option would not require much extra
effort but would open up the internals to those of us who are daft enough to
play with such things of an evening instead of supporting the local brewery.

The manufacturer could supply 'something that works'. The only real problem
is that developing good software is extremely expensive. My above idea would
have been good with the Orion (IMHO).

I am not volunteering :-)

Simon Brown
---
www.hb9drv.ch www.laax.ch

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k6dgw

Re: Re: Competition for Elecraft???

Ahh, come on, some of us males, (and most hams are male) are colorblind
-- really.

Fred K6DGW
Auburn CA CM98lw

Simon Brown (HB9DRV) wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Craig Rairdin" <[hidden email]>
>
> All that said, I would love it if the K3 had a nice LCD color display...
> ---
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Bill Coleman-2

Re: Re: Competition for Elecraft???

In reply to this post by Dave G.

On Nov 2, 2005, at 12:01 PM, Dave G. wrote:

> I would think the Sienna is aimed at a different market than
> the traditional Elecraft'er.. possibly the digitally inclined
> Ham ??

It just seems, in the performance for dollar arena, if I have $3000
to spend, why would I buy the Sienna over the Ten-Tec Orion? Or even
two K2/100s w/ KAT100s, if I want the whole build-it experience?

It's hard to perceive what niche the Sienna is targeting. We'll have
to wait and see how well they do.

Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL Mail: [hidden email]
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
-- Wilbur Wright, 1901

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N2EY

Re: Re: Competition for Elecraft???

In reply to this post by Dave G.

In a message dated 11/13/05 11:30:41 AM Eastern Standard Time, [hidden email]
writes:

> It just seems, in the performance for dollar arena, if I have $3000
> to spend, why would I buy the Sienna over the Ten-Tec Orion?

Because:

- you can work on a Sienna
- Sienna has some features Orion doesn't
- some folks with enough $$ will have *both* rigs...

Or even
>
> two K2/100s w/ KAT100s, if I want the whole build-it experience?
>

Because they're not the same. And it may not be about performance-per-dollar
as much as about performance-no-matter-what-the-cost

> It's hard to perceive what niche the Sienna is targeting.

Agreed. It's definitely not the same niche as the K2, seeing as how a
fully-loaded K2-100 is about half the price of a barebones Sienna.

Another thought: If a ham homebrews a rig, the entire cost is on him/her. But
if a ham homebrews a rig and offers copies of it as a kit, which is the
product of a small business, a lot of the cost can be transferred to the business
as an expense. Someone who is enterprising enough to design a rig like the
Sienna (or the K2....) could have the enterprise to make it a business.

And we all win.

73 de Jim, N2EY

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NR5A

Re: Re: Competition for Elecraft???

What is a Sienna??? I did a Google search and all I could find is its a
Toyota??? Puzzled!!

Jerry - NR5A
----- Original Message -----
From: <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>; <[hidden email]>
Cc: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2005 2:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Re: Competition for Elecraft???

> In a message dated 11/13/05 11:30:41 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> [hidden email]
> writes:
>
>
>> It just seems, in the performance for dollar arena, if I have $3000
>> to spend, why would I buy the Sienna over the Ten-Tec Orion?
>
> Because:
>
> - you can work on a Sienna
> - Sienna has some features Orion doesn't
> - some folks with enough $$ will have *both* rigs...
>
> Or even
>>
>> two K2/100s w/ KAT100s, if I want the whole build-it experience?
>>
>
> Because they're not the same. And it may not be about
> performance-per-dollar
> as much as about performance-no-matter-what-the-cost
>
>
>> It's hard to perceive what niche the Sienna is targeting.
>
> Agreed. It's definitely not the same niche as the K2, seeing as how a
> fully-loaded K2-100 is about half the price of a barebones Sienna.
>
> Another thought: If a ham homebrews a rig, the entire cost is on him/her.
> But
> if a ham homebrews a rig and offers copies of it as a kit, which is the
> product of a small business, a lot of the cost can be transferred to the
> business
> as an expense. Someone who is enterprising enough to design a rig like the
> Sienna (or the K2....) could have the enterprise to make it a business.
>
> And we all win.
>
> 73 de Jim, N2EY
>
> _______________________________________________
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> You must be a subscriber to post to the list.
> Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.):
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>
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>
>

EricJ-2

RE: Re: Competition for Elecraft???

Boy, you really fell behind, didn't you, Jerry? Three weeks go by and they
slipped half a dozen transceivers out on you.

Anyway, the Sienna appears to be a high end kit ($3,000 for the stripped
model, double that for the whole deal) where you get a bunch of
pre-assembled boards and cable them together. It also has a built in PC. I
assume you get to cable that together, too. I know...be still my heart!

http://www.getboost.com/dz/default.htm

I might have been interested, but Dave Benson just released the HiMite so I
ordered that instead.

Eric
KE6US
www.ke6us.com

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of nr5a
Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2005 5:38 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Re: Competition for Elecraft???

What is a Sienna??? I did a Google search and all I could find is its a
Toyota??? Puzzled!!

Jerry - NR5A
----- Original Message -----
From: <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>; <[hidden email]>
Cc: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2005 2:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Re: Competition for Elecraft???

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