[Elecraft] Re： RadCom, Chinese K1?

[Johnny Siu]

Hello David,

The ham radio market in China is something like Japanese market 25 years ago.  While ham population has been declining in most part of the world, the number of ham in China is in fact increasing.

China is just like a world factory and manufacture products from high end to low end.  Of course, you may say that some of them are copy cat.  However, it is a kind of evolution proces like Japan in the 50-60's.

I have no idea about the quality of this Chinese K1 but I would guess its price could be just 1/4 of an Elecraft K1 in China.  Hong Kong is just the southern door of Mainland China. Within one hour travelling distance, we can reach the silicon valley of China, Shenzhen and there are varieties of Electronic products at 1/3 of the US price.

As you may be aware there are now Chinese made V/U handheld at price of 1/3 of the Japanese one.  Initially, the quality of these Chinese H/T is not up to standard but I find them in fact keep on improving.

Back to Elecraft, as we are aware, material costs of K2 and K3 etc should not be great.  All we paid for is the design concept and excellent support service from Elecraft.

I do not try to put myself into the debate of intellectual rights.  The reality is that there are always Chinese products with similar function but at 1/4 or 1/5 of the price.  You may not like it but within a second, you may think about it though you eventually disregard it.

As mentioned before in this reflecter, Li-ion battery in China is now so cheap that it is only 1/5 of the price in US.  I once thought of using them in the KBT2 of my K2.  However, like most of you in this reflector, I have doubt on the quality of these cells and drop my idea.  I do not know how long I would insist on thinking like that because I find the quality of these cells keeps on improving.

73

Johnny VR2XMC
from Hong Kong




________________________________
寄件人﹕ David Lankshear <dave at lanks.plus.com>
收件人 Elecraft at mailman.qth.net
傳送日期﹕ 2009/9月/21 (星期一) 8:47:44 PM
主題： [Elecraft] RadCom, Chinese K1?

The October 2009 edition of RSGB’s RadCom carries some column inches
entitled “A New Chinese QRP Transceiver” in its regular monthly QRP feature.
K1HAH, John Callaghan, is taking orders for these HB-1A fully built units,
similar to Eleccraft’s KX-1.  Shipment will be direct from China.  They are
fully built and cover 5 – 16MHz CW/SSB Rx and 7, 10 & 14MHz CW Tx at approx.
4W when driven from a mains PSU.    They are designed and manufactured in
China by BD4RG and another ham named Bu Xianzhi.



A UK retailer, Martyn Lynch, is advertising them at approx. £250,
http://www.hamradio.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?REFPAGE=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2eham
radio%2eco%2euk%2facatalog%2fAmateur_Radio%2ehtml
<http://www.hamradio.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?REFPAGE=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2eha
mradio%2eco%2euk%2facatalog%2fAmateur_Radio%2ehtml&WD=hb%2d1a&PN=Am_Handheld
_MyDEL%2ehtml%23a1_213804#a1_213804>
&WD=hb%2d1a&PN=Am_Handheld_MyDEL%2ehtml%23a1_213804#a1_213804 or go to
www.hamradio.co.uk <http://www.hamradio.co.uk/>  and search for HB-1A.



Could this be the Chinese clone of the KX-1, but with SMT?



73  DaveL  G3TJP


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