[Elecraft] Can Elecraft take over the global HF ham radio business ?

[Marinos Markomanolakis, M.D.]

Dear fellow Elecrafters,
This is going to be an out of the ordinary post, and I am sure will get 
quite a bit of criticism, but since there has been a recent discussion about 
looking for ways to satisfy as many potential customers as possible (with 
the QRO kits etc), I would like to hear some opinions about this:

What are the reasons for the popularity of the K2 radio not being equal to 
the Japanese made rigs worldwide ? Yes, the rig is very popular but its 
production/sale numbers are just about 5000, a rather small number compared 
to any of the commercially available units.

In my view, which may be wrong of course, the answer is that the K2 is not 
considered by the majority of the hams worldwide as the radio that can 
substitute all others in HF in their shack. It is rather seen as a 
specialized 2nd or 3rd "luxury" radio.

And here comes the question:
Would it be possible and financially profitable for Elecraft to introduce a 
full feature transceiver kit that can maintain the well known RX advantages 
of the K2 while adding other features that have come to be considered as 
"standard" in modern radios ?

* General HF coverage
* IF manual Notch
* Continuously variable PBT / Rx Bandwidth
* Maybe 200W RF output
* Band (manual) preselector

Of course many people will argue about the usefulness of these features, but 
having a radio with the above would make it an extremely attractive choice 
as the only radio for many more hams worldwide, and since the vast majority 
of us like to build equipment, certainly would prefer it over ready made 
"black-boxes".....

Just some philosophical thoughts, and topics of debate.
73 to all,
Marinos, ki4gin