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

Tue Feb 9 04:03:25 EST 2010

Hi Johnny

Elecraft  could become a killer company if it was very aggressive.

Products that I think would be a huge success if Elecraft put their name behind them would be these.

A SDR receiver like the SDR-IQ/QSR1/Perseus with  better interfacing for ham radio use. Besides hams low band AM band  DX'ers are huge in numbers. Their numbers alone would justify Elecraft producing a SDR.

A SDR transmitter, Phil Covington  and HPSDR are just too small  to bring these products to the market in a realistic time frame. The curiosity factor is now not in the 3rd quarter  of 2013! Who wants to waste money on experimental products that are not supported by people like TAPR? Not me!

A fully direct sampling transceiver like the ADAT from Elecraft would be fantastic. While contestors  are an important group for high performance radios, their demand is minuscule compared to the general ham population who just likes playing around. Ultimate receiver specifications dont always factor into most hams purchasing decisions. If you want clues for this look at the Softrock Yahoo group, 6000 members! What other ham radio group has this number of members? 

All the big players are missing the boat, anyone who takes on this SDR market like now will dominate ham radio manufacturer into the future. Its a momentum that cant be stopped. The K3 is bordering on obsolete probably within 2 years with the fast march of SDR transceiver technology.

Products like the Flexradio are great, however they just dont get the point that people dont want to boot a PC for ham radio use. If Flexradio had some kind of embedded front panel for the Flex5000 it would be a huge hit. 

Variations of the K3 product would be a good start. A K3 with a single receiver and 200 watts. Why not build the P3 into this single receiver K3 with a power supply? It certainly would give most of the Icom lovers something to think about. Why bother with kits? Just mass produce the whole product in Mexico or wherever, it will sell. 

Why not produce a K3 version of the Orion? The Orion languishes  with poor firmware development. Elecraft should strike and recruit the dissatisfied Orion owners.

The new Yaesu FT5000 despite its crippled second receiver is going to be a huge seller. While many in here whine endlessly on how bad knobs are, if the market wants knobs and a bigger box give it to them. The business world is littered with the carcasses of businesses  who  thought that they were right by trying to force feed the market with a product that the market did not like. Technical superiority  is not always important.

While many people scorn MFJ, MFJ has the right attitude because it identifies new ideas and opportunities and gets them to the market place fast. They are successful because of their ability to bring their products to the market place very fast. I have been burnt by MFJ, however some of their new products like the Intellituners are superbly engineered products that are just as good as Palstars Auto tuner in quality. Just examine MFJ's PCB;'s its not "junk" Why does not Elecraft produce a tuner like MFJ's 1.5kw Intellituner? 

With so much interest in balanced feeders/tuners, 43ft verticals and remote tuners on every ham radio forum every second day, I am surprised that non of the big players have woken up to this perceived need.  I have seen more cries for a legal limit  remote tuner than I have seen for 100 Db IMD dynamic range receivers on ham radio forums.

The only problem that I see here on the Elecraft list is that many people want to force feed you a bread and water diet for your ham radio enjoyment. This bread and water diet with the overemphasis on receiver specifications wont win you  a big slice of the ham radio market by itself. You really need to fire up peoples imaginations with ideas, new concepts and products. Elecraft could easily occupy the technical moral high ground if it set out to do so with decent products.

Another product could be a Autotune HF tube amplifier like the Acom. If solid state is way too hard, tubes would be a good alternative. This amplifier  would use a single 8877 or 3CPX800's. With Elecrafts name on this product it would be a huge hit. Who can argue with Acoms success? A kit autotune HF amplifier could also be possible.  You could have this kit with and without auto-tune

I would be willing to put my money where my mouth is and pay deposits for some of the products  that I have mentioned. All I can say is that Elecraft should not be shy. It should email its customer base directly and ask them directly what products they would like. 

One thing that I will finally say is that Elecraft should stick to producing the best possible products. The ham market is flooded with junk products that dont really perform the way they should.  Its heartening to see products like Acom, N8LP Wattmeter, Microham and W5BIG  all who produce basically technically perfect products.  This should be Elecrafts aim, not just be another kit company.

John

--- On Mon, 2/8/10, Johnny Siu <vr2xmc at yahoo.com.hk> wrote:

> From: Johnny Siu <vr2xmc at yahoo.com.hk>
> Subject: [Elecraft] Re：  On the advisability of selling kit radios
> To: "Conway Yee" <yee at bronze.lcs.mit.edu>
> Cc: "Elecraft" <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
> Date: Monday, February 8, 2010, 11:17 PM
> 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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