[Elecraft] [QRP-L] The Chinese KX3

[Lu Romero]

>From the looks of this rig, it seems to be from the same
source as the Chinese KX1 "competitor" that is now also
being sold and imported by TenTec.

Look for more Chinese sourced HF gear in the future as their
ham population ramps up.  I was in Singapore in 2010 and saw
a Chinese made rig at one of the backwater stores there that
was a twin brother to the Yaesu FT450 at the Singapore
Electronics "Tower" downtown.  A dead ringer except for the
color of the cabinet (gray instead of black), the knobs and
the display layout.

Loved the cardboard box it came in, too!  Had that Far
Eastern cardboard feel to it :).  They wanted $875 USD for
it. The panel labels were in English, but in that serif font
that Far East people are so fond of.  I didnt have a camera
with me (my phone didnt have a camera in those days), would
have loved to have a photo of it.

The store looked like one of those droid stores you see in
the Mos Eisley spaceport on  Tatooine from Star Wars,
complete with a pot of some kind of exotic smelling soup
simmering behind the counter in the back.

-lu-w4lt-
K3-P3-K1
Using the AL-K-Line


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Message: 12
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:50:15 +0100
From: Thomas Horsten <thomas at horsten.com>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] [QRP-L] The Chinese KX3
To: James Rodenkirch <rodenkirch_llc at msn.com>
Cc: elecraft at mailman.qth.net, QRP-L <qrp-l at mailman.qth.net>,
    john at ae5x.com
Message-ID:
   
<CAPaRxgQouRvmd7xry3uuew99uG4KG5jE0vo=Vt+_fnWORnYGhg at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

The only way they will come anywhere close to the KX3
performance is by
pirating large portions of the KX3 hardware design and
firmware. If that's
the case I hope they don't succeed.

Besides, if they try to add all the same kinds of features
that the KX3 has
it will probably be full of bugs and I am sure you won't get
the same kind
of support that you do from Elecraft, where the developers
actually listen
to the users. At best, it will be a pale imitation of the
real thing and at
worst it will be an epic nightmare of bugs and trying to
deal with sporadic
support announcements in Chinese with Google Translate as
your only friend
when trying to figure out what's going on.

But to be honest, looks like a spoof to me. A well made
spoof, but still a
spoof.

73, Thomas M0TRN