[Elecraft] K3 STATUS

[Fred Jensen]

David Wilburn wrote:
> My experience tends to be just the opposite.  You tend to get a good
> schedule from engineering as they often take their best estimate and
> multiply it by 1.5 or 2.  This gives a cushion for delays and oppsies.
> Project managers and marketing, now that is another level.  They tend to
> never want to leave a cushion, expecting beyond all past experience that
> things will go -perfectly- "this" time.

I was once a Proj Engr, assigned to rescue a failed project involving a 
number of circuit boards, racks, and land mobile radios.  As we were 
redesigning the circuit boards to withstand installation in trucks and 
to actually be manufacturable, I was keeping track of the unit cost of 
each of them.  Those costs were declining as we got control of the 
engineering, and better manufacturability.  The Division Manager asked 
me to keep him in the loop, and being the very naive engineer I was, I 
did that.  Then, someone explained to me that he was using my unit cost 
estimates, multiplying by the contract quantities, and moving the 
difference out of my budget and onto yet another failed project in the 
hopes of keeping the corporate weenies at bay.  My unit costs 
immediately went back up some "due to vendor delays and back-orders, 
among other things ... I'm really sorry Sir," and I became quite a bit 
less naive about the workings of the business side of the business.

If any of the K3 field testers or early arrivals have fooled with the RX 
audio equalizer, I'd like to hear the results.  Since I can't use my 
hearing aids under the headfones, I'm hoping I can use the equalizer to 
beef up my hearing a little and start enjoying SSB contests.  My K3 is 
in batch 3 [I think] and will arrive sometime after the first of the year.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2008 Cal QSO Party  4-5 Oct 08
- www.cqp.org