[Elecraft] TRANSLATION: K3 Subreceiver Status Update (KRX3 option)

[Don Rasmussen]

>> For fun, I thought I'd provide an "East Coast"
translation of this recent announcement from Elecraft.
----------------------

As Rodney Dangerfield would say "tough crowd - tough
crowd"!

There is probably a fair amount of truth in Steve's
humorous comments, but I balance them against what the
Elecraft guys have on the table today. They offer
several product lines that operate at the top of the
specifications charts, without a revolving door to a
huge service desk, there's immediate attention to each
user on any specific product issue, and at a price
that undercuts the competition.

I'm resigned that the highest cost of accepting
Elecraft production model is time, and have planned
accordingly. 

It's still painful, all this waiting. But with respect
to the subreceiver it beats a weird alice design
w/marginal isolation pushed out early. You might
expect that in some of the competing manufacturing
models. 

YMMV (your milage may vary). 

de wb8yqj


[Elecraft] TRANSLATION: K3 Subreceiver Status Update
(KRX3 option)
Steve Sacco NN4X nn4x at embarqmail.com 
Thu Jan 17 10:58:47 EST 2008 

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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For fun, I thought I'd provide an "East Coast"
translation of this 
recent announcement from Elecraft.

Enjoy!


73,
Steve NN4X
EL98jh




>Message: 38
>Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 10:18:06 -0800
>From: wayne burdick <n6kr at elecraft.com>
>Subject: [Elecraft] K3 Subreceiver Status Update
(KRX3 option)
>To: Elecraft Reflector <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
>Message-ID: <6cc130c50266a27a945ae9276b85b9d1 at
elecraft.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII;
format=flowed
>
>I wanted to give those who've ordered a K3
subreceiver a status update.
>First, thanks for your patience; I realize the
subreceiver has been
>significantly delayed. (This is also pushing out the
DVR. Lyle, KK7P
>and I are collaborating on the PCBs and firmware for
both units.)

TRANSLATION: We've been stringing everyone along for,
what...9 months 
or so?  We promised that very useful KRX3 option, and
we're pretty 
sure that more than a few folks have ordered the K3
based upon the 
existence that option.  THANKS for buying our sales 
puffery!  Unfortunately, we can't manage to bury the
truth any 
longer.  Here's the deal: We're nowhere close to being
ready on the KRX3.



>When we release a product, it has to meet a number of
criteria. Raw
>performance by traditional measures is just one of
these. Fortunately
>the subreceiver has met our expectations in this
regard, with dynamic
>range virtually identical to that of the main.



TRANSLATION:  blah blah blah blah...this is filler to
divert your 
attention...let's hope they take the bait.


>But there are two other requirements that we must
meet: excellent
>mutual isolation between the main and receivers, and
ease of
>installation. Recently, we made the difficult
decision that both must
>be improved.
>
>Isolation between the receivers is critical to
usability. For example,
>if you're listening to an extremely strong signal on
one receiver, none
>of it should leak into the other's I.F. After
extensive testing, we
>concluded that we were close, but needed more
isolation.
>
>Regarding installation: Someone with no experience
should be able to
>install or remove the subreceiver without much
difficulty. The present
>installation process is just a bit too complex once
all other modules
>and their associated cables are in place; the left
side, chassis
>stiffener, and several cables have to be removed.
This has a secondary
>effect, which is to make it very time-consuming to
change crystal
>filters on either receiver. We felt that we should
improve this now,
>before all fabrications were cast in stone.


TRANSLATION: Our first cut at a design, and the
prototypes we've put 
together from that, don't work very well.  We've tried
and tried, but 
they just don't.


>Both isolation and installation can be improved with
changes to our
>original KRX3 PCB layout. I'm working on this now.
Once the PC board
>and shield designs are complete, we'll quickly build
first articles and
>run them through all of the tests again.

TRANSLATION: We're doing a major re-design.  Next come
the prototypes 
and testing.  No idea when it'll be ready.

>I'm confident that these improvements will allow the
subreceiver to
>live up to your expectations as well as ours. We'll
post further
>updates as we make progress.

TRANSLATION: We hope you'll latch onto this part of
the spin, and not 
think about how we've (once again) made promises we
couldn't keep, 
and didn't let you know until we couldn't explain it
away anymore.

>(I know, I know -- "Stop rambling and get back to
work!")

TRANSLATION: Let's hope the cute signoff will take the
edge off of 
any anger that we haven't managed to nullify with the
earlier part of 
the announcement.



  _.    _.   ...._   _.._   nn4x at embarqmail.com