[Elecraft] K3 repair

[Don Wilhelm]

John,

While such proactive communication would be a good thing, please 
understand that it takes a person -who is knowledgeable of the process 
and estimated time - to create the emails for that communication.  The 
person with that kind of knowledge is most likely the tech himself, and 
if everyone wants their radios back as quickly as possible, it is best 
to keep him working on the radio currently on his repair bench.

Even the tech cannot give a good answer if he has several radios in the 
queue.  He never knows how long each radio will take until he gets it 
open and makes some progress on it.

Bottom line is that all you really can get is an educated guess, and 
even though an educated guess, it is usually wrong - Murphy says so.

The only real answer you can get is how far back in the queue is your 
radio.  When I have more than 5 radios in line here, things get a bit 
hectic, and I don't do the K3 repairs, just KX1, K1, K2, XVseries and 
the rest of that line.  With the advent of the K3 DSP Board upgrade, I 
believe the queue at Elecraft has grown substantially.  Unfortunately, 
they cannot grow their repair staff quickly, it takes some learning and 
experience before a new tech can become proficient.

But yes, 7 weeks is a long time.  I get uncomfortable if I cannot hold 
my turnaround time to less than 2 weeks, but sometimes "stuff" happens.

73,
Don W3FPR

WA6L wrote:
> The only real complaint I had with the entire process is that there was no
> proactive communication.  I had to inquire each time a deadline passed in
> order to get an update.
>
> 73,
>
> John, WA6L
>
>