[Elecraft] K3 Status Update 8/29/07

[Eric Swartz WA6HHQ - Elecraft]

K3 Status Update: August 29, 2007

Note from Eric:
I apologize for not posting earlier. I planned on posting an update for
everyone before I left town for the JA Ham Fair last week, but ran out
of time. So you can blame this delay in status on me (and the Marketing
dept.) instead of the Engineering dept.


Our revised target for the beginning of K3 shipments is now September
17th. The K3 shipping date is now primarily determined by delays in K3
part deliveries, PC boards and completed assemblies from our vendors.
The remaining handful of delayed parts are scheduled to arrive this week
and early next week. There are less than ten different parts in this
category, but it only takes one part not arriving (or arriving with the
incorrect value) to delay production. Every time this has happened our
PCB stuffing operation has had to halt working on one board and move to
another while the part problem is resolved. The final four raw PC boards
took 2 weeks longer than expected and they arrive tomorrow. (There are a
total of 16 PC boards in the basic K3/10.) Also, our sheet metal
fabricator has taken several weeks longer than they projected to supply
us with painted and silk-screened K3 chassis parts. Final K3 sheet metal
is now scheduled to arrive in Aptos on Friday.

Our field testers and engineering team have done an excellent job over
the last four weeks thrashing out the K3's design, assembly manual and
operational features. (Thanks guys!) Wayne, Lyle and the rest of our
engineering team have been working 7 day weeks incorporating the Field
Tester's suggestions and making sure the K3 meets their expectations and
hopefully yours. We've field tested the first release of the assembly
manual and we are now testing the latest update.

The KNB3 noise blanker was the last core board completed for the K3. It
was released to production last month and is one of the best performing
noise blankers I've used. It includes 8 different NB gain levels and has
two stages of internal AGC, along with three separate widths of
blanking. The net result is that I have been able to remove almost
anything my local power company, electric fences and noisy autos and can
throw at it. And combined with Lyle's latest version of the DSP NB, we
have a formidable tool for interference reduction. (The hardware and DSP
noise blankers can be used simultaneously to reduce a wide range of
pulse type interference.)

We are receiving assembled K3 boards in Aptos now and are testing them
in preparation for their inclusion in K3 kits and assembled units. So
far we have received, or will receive this week, initial shipments of a
number of the K3 board assemblies, including the front panel, mixer,
audio and digital I/O, PLL, crystal filter and transverter I/O boards.

We appreciate your patience as we get the final pieces in place to ship
your K3s. From now until we ship we will post weekly updates on K3
shipping here on the Elecraft list and on our web page. We'll also be 
posting the pre-release version of the K3 assembly manual on our web 
site later this week to give you a feel for what is coming.

73,
Eric  WA6HHQ
Wayne, N6KR