[Elecraft] Re： On the advisability of selling kit radios

[Johnny Siu]

Hi Conway,

Through out the years with Elecraft, I feel they are successful in identifying a small but loyal market segment of customers.

As you have been aware, ham population is shrinking.  My boy has no interest to play my whole list of radios though he got his ham ticket at the age of 16.  Similar to you, I would wonder how long a pure ham radio manufacturer could survive.  My comment on this has no regard to how long Elecraft will stay in its pure ham radio manufacturing.

Within my limited knowledge of the radio industry, Icom earned most its business profit from insitutional contracts and business.  Part of the knowledge and expertise gained from those contracts has been used in their ham radios.  In other words,  ham radio now becomes a 'by-product' of their successful insitutional contracts.

I truly hope that Elecraft will stay in its current business and give the ham population an unique choice of products.

73

Johnny VR2XMC



----- 郵件原件 ----
寄件人﹕ Conway Yee <yee at bronze.lcs.mit.edu>
收件人﹕ elecraft at mailman.qth.net
傳送日期﹕ 2010/2/9 (二) 1:57:16 PM
主題： [Elecraft] On the advisability of selling kit radios

The threads about a kit amplifier got me thinking.

It is now 1999.  The market is saturated with well established companies
such as Yaesu, Icom and Kenwood selling high quality radios.  Ham radio
technology is stagnant with no major leaps in the horizon.  The average
amateur is aging rapidly with very little influx of new blood.  The youth
are all interested in computers and the internet.  The days of Heathkit
are long past; there is no way to save money building kit electronics.
The only kit manufacturers sell small inexpensive radios that can be
built in a few hours.

Certainly there is no good reason to start a company selling a 100 Watt
kit SSB/CW rig....OTOH Elecraft bet it could and it would appear that they
are successful.

It is now 2010.  The same arguments are being put forward for an solid
state HF amplifier.  In addition, the legal liability of high current
electronics is daunting.  The population of customers of amplifiers is
even smaller than that for 100 Watt kits.  Are these arguments
correct?  I don't know but suspect that there would be a niche market
for such kits as long as the manufacturer has no business presence in the
US.

Hopefully such a kit starts getting sold in the next few years.  It
sounds like fun.

tnx.
Conway Yee, N2JWQ

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