[Elecraft] OT: QST's review of the Yaesu FTDX5000MP

[George A. Thornton]

When I was in the market for my K3 someone told me that what is at the
top of the heap today may be surpassed by someone else tomorrow.
Supposedly the Yaesu has a better receiver, at least on CW.  

What would bother me about this kind of a rig is that after spending all
that money on it, I may find myself owning an outmoded rig in a couple
of years.  They only maintain the current state of the art up to a
point, then they want to sell a new model.  I would be extremely mad if
I had bought the FT-2000 and now find the FT-5000 offering significantly
enhanced performance.

The other thing that would bother me is having to deal with product
defects.  Judging from what I read in the report, this unit already has
a number of issues.  That is not surprising for new technology but the
question is what are they going to do about it.  Sure, they will fix
some things now but I am probably going to have to send it in to the
factory for a month or more.

The beauty of the K3 is the absolutely stellar service.  Plus the fact
that most issues can be fixed with a simple swap of a board or a part.
Instead of sending the unit in whenever something goes wrong, I can with
the help of the factory figure out what is probably wrong and fix it
myself.  I just did that with a defective B encoder.

Further, as long as they continue to make K3's I know I am going to be
able to benefit from all the improvements.  I may have to pay a little
for parts but I am not going to have to shell out $5000 for a new radio.