[Elecraft] Elecraft vs. Heath.

[Bill W5WVO]

Julian G4ILO wrote:

> I think that the Japanese manufacturers are influenced most by the
> Japanese market which, from what I've read, is a lot different to the
> rest of the world. Many JA hams live in apartments, and have limited
> antenna options. A lot are restricted to low power. In Japan, you can
> (or certainly used to be able to) buy 10W versions of radios that are
> only available in 100W versions here. If you're so restricted, you may
> well be more interested in knobs, buttons and appearance than in
> performance specs that you can't actually get any advantage from.

I think Julian has nailed it here, in that the Ikensu strategy has always been 
essentially marketing-driven, and their experience base derives primarily from 
their domestic market. But I don't think the mass appeal of radios with a sexy 
appearance and sub-optimal performance is limited to Japan. We have plenty of 
"substantially underinformed" (trying to be charitable here) amateur operators 
right here in the USA, and I think the Ikensu features-first strategy will 
continue to work in this market. Will the K3 impact sales of their top-end 
super-premium transceivers? Probably. But how many of those radios do they 
actually sell? Not many in comparison to the number of low-end and mid-range 
transceivers they sell.

And of course the VHF/UHF FM marketplace is huge in comparison to the 
high-performance HF marketplace as well, especially in this country where the 
majority of new hams settle into a niche on a local 2M repeater and never go 
beyond it.

So I wouldn't worry about Ikensu being badly damaged.  :-)  Not that we would 
anyway!

Bill / W5WVO