[Elecraft] K3/0 mini observations

[Oliver Dröse]

To be honest I already waited for the first such comment to appear. 
Sorry Slava, this is not against you personally. I simply cannot hear 
all the praise anymore for cases which were wrong right from the 
beginning (and from people not even owning the product in question). 
Amazingly I already got a number of private emails from other customers 
comfirming the problem and ranting themselves. They just do not want to 
do it publicly (for what-ever reasons) but are all disappointed as well. 
Even a few who did contact customer service and did not even get an 
answer. What's the service level then?

Yes, I like Elecraft, too. I even like them, their attitude and their 
products very much! Meanwhile I own 2 x K3's (with ATU, sub-RX & 2 m 
option), a KPA500, a KAT500, a KX3 with all options and now a K3/0 mini. 
I'm even a fieldtester for their KX3-2M. So I probably am what one would 
call a loyal and valued customer. Nevertheless I'm not a Koolaid drinker 
and tell Elecraft if things are wrong (and they certainly appreciate 
it). This is what everybody should do.

This specific problem has nothing to do with good customer service but 
with quality control. Good customer service would have been if they did 
not even ship with the wrong displays as they knew about the problem! If 
they did not know about it (which I doubt) they did not even test it 
themselves during development (which I doubt, too). Every 4 years old 
child would have recognized you can't read the display if you put it on 
the table as designed. That's the reason why the KX3 is delivered with a 
6 o'clock display instead of a 12 o'clock display like the K3. Same 
design. And we are talking about production units here! Would have had 
full understanding if it was a test unit and problem discovered during 
FT or the like. This is what FT's are for. And we are talking about an 
obvious problem! I understand there are things that will only be 
discovered after a product is on the market already and maybe a thousand 
units in use. This is were Elcraft shines in and finds solutions. Hats 
off! But not for such an obvious problem.

Imagine buying a car (that has been on the market already and was 
test-driven before) and recognizing the car lights will only shine for 5 
m instead of 200 m. What would be your reaction? Shure it's nice if your 
dealer tells you "Oh yes, I will take care of the problem." but that is 
only good customer service in the second instance. Sure you would still 
be angry. First instance would have been not to deliver these cars to 
customers at all or change the lights before delivery already as they 
knew the lights were not the right ones, wouldn't it?

I'm now waiting how customer support will solve it. Hopefully in a 
manner that will not put me offline with the remote as sending it back 
to CA, let them change it and ship it back to Germany would at least 
take 4 weeks if not longer (ordered all my stuff directly from them so I 
know how long it takes). That would certainly not be good customer service.

And yes, there are quite a number of other (very) good suppliers with 
great customer service, too.

Rant off. And flame-suite on. ;-)

73, Olli

--

Contest, DX & radio projects: http://www.dh8bqa.de


Am 17.06.2014 13:02, schrieb Slava Baytalskiy:
> Now i ask you: where else would you get an even remotely similar level of service and commitment to customer?
>
> __________________
> Slava (Sal) B, W2RMS
> W2RMS at arrl.net
>
> On Jun 16, 2014, at 10:27 PM, Wayne Burdick <n6kr at elecraft.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Oliver,
>>
>>> The mini is used in tilted postion like the KX3. So I would have expected the same display like in the KX3 to be used…
>> We switched to the KX3 display very early in production. Contact customer support for a replacement (or we can do it for you, no charge).
>>
>>
>>> The manual gives a lot of hints concerning remote use itself but lacks completely concerning the hardware of the mini itself.
>> A significant update of the manual is pending. We were all a bit rushed getting the product into field test. We'll send you a copy of the latest when it comes out.
>>
>> Thanks for the feedback!
>>
>> Wayne
>> N6KR
>>
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>