[Elecraft] K3 & Competition

[juergen]

I would not be so dismissive of the competition. The emotional value of the Kenwood name in ham radio is well known. The Kenwood name is still hugely popular. Who does not comment about "kenwood audio quality"

You joke about  catching up with the K2. The Kenwood TS830s is a 30 year old radio that has  performance thats better  than  the K2 in many areas. It is the case of the K2 catching up with the 30 year old TS830S!

I would suggest that if Kenwood released a updated version of the TS950SDX or Kenwood TS870S  model radios  it would be a top seller.  This would be especially so if the performance matched the K3.  Just try buying any one of these models in good condition, good luck!

The TS870S was radio that was many years ahead of its time. It introduced concepts that  we take for granted today. Many of these concepts that we take for granted were   pioneered by Kenwood in the TS870S.

Just because Kenwood is not releasing numerous models of transceiver does not mean its not interested in the ham radio market. The board of Kenwood Japan still has a few hams on it including that of the founding family. It has been said in numerous places that the ham division of kenwood was  not closed had it not been for these  ham board members who had an emotional attachment with this hobby and its role in the companies history.

Kenwood could release a new model transceiver every month if it wanted to do that. Its in-house engineering  and development  department is much bigger than Yaesu or Icoms. Most of the engineers at Icom and Vertex got most of their training at Kenwood.  Alinco is a company that is very good at poaching Kenwood Engineers and designing the same products with their name on it.

In reality I prefer the way Kenwood does things. The Kenwood TS480HX is a good example of this. Well researched, well designed and well built.  Turning out radios like Icom does  full of bugs and component failure is certainly not very professional.  

I am sure if Kenwood designed the IC7700 it would not have PA device failure, or static problems when you touched the radio.

There is 2 rumors going around. The first is that Kenwood is designing a direct sampling super HF transceiver. This rumor comes  from a good source who indicates that the radio was being developed for the Japanese services. This came about because of Kenwoods links with JRC who have essentially closed down their HF radio manufacturing division.

 The second  rumour is that  Kenwood is  also designing a K3 like radio.  This makes good  sense because this is what market wants. The last thing we need is a another 70mhz IF radio with below average performance.

All of these long debates we have been having about receiver and transmitter performance is only going to result in better products for us all. The only losers in this debate are the manufacturers who cant deliver performance. Those who insist on charge ridiculous prices for sub-standard products that dont meet the needs  of the market will suffer.  You can only rely on a color screen, a big box and 20,000 knobs for so long before the customers  wake up and realize its just hot air and will ask for better performance. 

We know that the better performance cant be delivered with the up conversion architecture, so dont be surprised if  there is a 9mhz IF radio with a huge color screen some time soon! If Elecraft wants to keep its market share it cant just rest on its receiver laurels either.

John




--- On Sun, 2/14/10, lstavenhagen <lstavenhagen at hotmail.com> wrote:

> From: lstavenhagen <lstavenhagen at hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K3 & Competition
> To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
> Date: Sunday, February 14, 2010, 5:37 PM
> 
> Heck they're still trying to catch up to the K2.... and
> Icom and Yeasu too. 
> And I dont think any of them yet make a rig with the
> performance of the K3
> at all...
> 
> LS
> W5QD, K2 #6880
> -- 
> View this message in context: http://n2.nabble.com/K3-Competition-tp4571345p4572492.html
> Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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