K3 Portability
Posted by
Don Rasmussen on
Apr 23, 2010; 5:21am
URL: http://elecraft.85.s1.nabble.com/K3-Portability-tp4948785.html
The K3 is light for what it does, and simple. I have no doubt that if the K3 were wrapped with bubble wrap and double boxed, it could be dropped from almost any height without harm. Some of the K3 contemporaries, I'm not so certain about. FT2000 - yikes. There is a power supply in there and there are so many interconnected boards spread over a large area. Nice reliable looking radio in there but I wouldnt want to test drop it for any reason. I would be nervous about sending it in for repair that some little thing could work itself out of position, etc.
Orion is better but still a lot of unsupported open space.
FLEX - ;-) ha - my PC falls apart just sitting on the floor. I am constantly slapping my DELL back together. Fairness to FLEX, they are not racing with Icom to be the Dxpedition transceiver of choice.
There is an old school term for some gear, MTBF. It just seems to me looking at the K3 simplicity, that there is a whole lot less to go wrong, even though Elecraft is always the first one to make anything that may happen, right.
So I am wondering. I have an FT101 from 1975 that's still going great and it's as complex as heck inside and so many moving parts to stick, caps to harden, bandswitch contacts to foul. How long will K3 go, in comparison. After burn in, years I'd guess, lots of them. Seems that like jets, daily expansion and contraction might be it's biggest stresser.
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