[Elecraft] More Than a Message Board

[N2EY at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/4/07 2:18:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
ncsailors at yahoo.com writes:

> Wow - 98 against, 2 for.
> 
Seems pretty clear what people want!

>   Industry,
> and commercial orgs - DO NOT go the reflector
> mail-based route. 

But we are amateurs. We don't *have to* do things the way
industry does them.  We do them the way we like to, as long
as certain regulations are met.

This goes far beyond message boards and email reflectors.
I don't think there are any non-amateur users of PSK31, yet the K3 has the 
mode built-in, because we hams do use the mode. Only a handful of nonamateurs 
still use Morse Code/CW for communication, yet all Elecraft rigs are optimized 
for the mode, and it's the only mode the K1, KX1, and base-model K2 will do - 
because we hams use it. Big fat analog-style tuning knobs are rare outside 
amateur radio, but we hams still like 'em. There are lots more examples. 

When the K2 first appeared, I heard skeptics say that it was the wrong way to 
go. They said Elecraft should have looked at what the rest of the industry 
was doing - which certainly wasn't selling $500-plus QRP CW rigs you have to 
build! 6000+ K2s and I-don't-know-how-many K1s and KX1s later, it seems those 
skeptics missed the whole point. 

73 de Jim, N2EY


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