[Elecraft] Elecraft Service

[Jim Brown]

On 4/21/2022 1:52 PM, turnbull wrote:
>    It is not so long ago that the K3S and slightly different K3 were in production.   Certainly not seven years for the K3S.    I am dissapointed with Elecraft on this issue.

Hi Doug,

The K3 was first sold in late 2007-early 2008, designed around parts 
that were available at least by late 2006. The Elecraft K2 and K3 are 
modular designs; the K3S is K3 with some of those modules updated.

MANY years ago, I managed the service department of a large Chicago 
sound contractor. Repair-ability is strongly dependent on the 
availability of parts; the COST of a repair depends on the labor to 
diagnose the problem(s), the cost of repair parts, the labor to replace 
them, and the labor to do any needed alignment and testing.

It's not unusual for certain major parts around which a product is 
designed to go obsolete, be unobtainable, and for there to be no 
practical replacement. That happened to Ten Tec with their first solid 
state power amp, which was designed around newly developed Motorola 
devices. After only a year or two, Motorola found a fundamental problem 
with them, and discontinued them, with NO replacement. I bought one of 
those amps used, fully understanding the issue. It was a nice amp, well 
protected. I used it for a while in Chicago, eventually selling it after 
moving to W6.

Elecraft's modular design concept has contributed to making them a very 
good corporate citizen. You want to upgrade a JA radio, you sell it and 
buy a new one, and in the case of Yaesu, the second upgrade to their 
'90s flagship still didn't fix their very nasty clicks, and their newer 
generation of rigs that replaced them are holy terrors for clicks and 
splatter.

The average model cycle of JA radios is one half to one quarter that of 
the two K3s I bought in early 2008, and that are still in active use on 
my SO2R operating desk today. When the new K3S modules were available, I 
upgraded to the new synth boards and the new transverter boards. Both 
units have been repaired at least once. Eventually the time will come 
when failure of key parts will make them unrepairable.

73, Jim K9YC