[Elecraft] The Cost Of Amateur Radios

[Edward R Cole]

At risk this has already been "moderated", but my two cents:

I had about 4+ years to study the choices, and the K3 was on the list 
from the start.  At the time of my decision (May 2010) the main 
contender was the Flex5000.  A lot of eme'rs bought the Flex, but I 
decided to listen to the HF CWers and bought my K3/10.

What is nice is one can order their K3 optimized as they want by 
buying the options you will use.  I do mainly VHF-eme so I did not 
need a 100w HF amp; in fact I do not use the 10w amp very much as 
transverters run on 0-dBm XVTR I/F.

I did want the better TCXO and bought a few filters (ended up selling 
one of them), bought the KRX3 subreceiver, but no ATU (I had two 
manual HF tuners).  My total before shipping was $2863.  Definitely 
the most I ever spent on a single ham radio.  I robbed my 401K for 
the funds (promising my wife it was the last ham radio of my life - I 
lied as I bought the KX3 two years later).

I think customer relations of Elecraft are superb!  And so far the 
firmware upgrades cost me nothing - the promise of a "forever SDR" 
was kept.  Yeah, the new SYNTH will cost me a little - but not 
another $3K.  I do not need a K4.  My previous radios were a FT-847 
and FT-817, FT-840 before that and a Tentec Scout, TS180S, Tentec 
Argonaut 505 ....heathkits (some I built).

To date, no buyers remorse for me!

73, Ed - KL7UW
http://www.kl7uw.com
     "Kits made by KL7UW"
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