[Elecraft] K3 eHam review after 2+ years

[Don Wilhelm]

Howard,

You were not viewed as a troll, but I believe your perception of the 
number and importance of changes is greater than actual.

I encourage you to check the hardware changes over the life of the K3, 
and also look at the rate of changes.  They are all listed at the bottom 
of the K3 page on the Elecraft website (look for "Enhancements and 
Modifications")

In the life of the K3 so far, there have been only 12 hardware changes.  
The rate is important to me in determining the "finality" of changes too 
- note that the only one this year has been the Keying of the SUBOUT 
connector to prevent improper installation of the SubRX  and does not 
change the functioning of the K3 at all, it is just a "builder error 
prevention" change.  If you order factory built, that one would be a "NO 
OP" because you would have had the SubRX factory installed.  After 11 
changes through 2008, we have seen 7 months of the K3 with no further 
real hardware changes.  Yes, the audio low pass filter is on the 
horizon, but depending on your ears, you may not notice whether it is 
installed or not - most owners could not hear what it 'fixes', but you 
might want to wait until that change is released.

Yes, I am ignoring the change to the KXV3 to accommodate the new 
internal 144 MHz transceiver.  The old KXV3 worked just fine but did not 
have the 'hooks' for the transceiver - that change is more along the 
lines of what other manufacturers would designate as a model 
change/upgrade - but Elecraft does not "do business" that way.

With the K3, there is no need for a user to make any of the hardware 
changes.  A K3 can be upgraded by Elecraft if that is what you want or 
need, but if the new mod does not make any difference to your operation, 
why bother at all? 

I do not expect many more hardware changes to the K3, and in my opinion, 
there have actually been very few since its introduction, but I base my 
comparison on the K2 which had many incremental changes until new boards 
were released with SN 3000, and only 2 after that time.

BTW -- your email is being sent in multiple copies, I have seen 3 in my 
inbox this morning.  You may want to see where it is stuck in the 
pipeline, be that your email client or your ISP or elsewhere.

73,
Don W3FPR

HowardZ wrote:
> Ah Don,
>
> You are so kind.  I expected to be labeled a troll.
>
>   
>