[Elecraft] Overseas distribution and service?

[G4GNX]

Dave, I agree. You certainly should not have to pay that kind of shipping for a UK warranty and TBQH if it had been my warranty claim, I’d have taken W&S to court over it. The warranty was with the UK retailer, not Elecraft. W&S lost their engineer/technician and decided to crap all over their customers. In fact I also know of a local Ham who returned his early K4 under warranty to W&S and insisted that they replaced it free of charge. They had to (reluctantly) agree.

However, I thought your original post was about lack of UK facility and overseas shipping charges, not the (rightly) defunct W&S. Hence my comments.

Sure you can get service manuals for other rigs, these days but unless you have appropriate equipment, including an SMD station and some programming knowledge, you would be very unwise to undertake your own repair on a rig that’s in the same class as the K4.
If you return your rigs to a local distributor for repair, you wouldn’t need service manuals anyway.

Elecraft have an adequate support service, both online and by phone. You can also get direct access to the owners and talk things over with them if necessary. Can you get direct access to Icom or Yaesu staff at all, let alone the company owners?

Sorry, this is getting away from the subject line, but ISTM that Wayne and Eric actually care about their customers as fellow Radio Amateurs and are not ‘just’ interested in the money or prestige. I don’t even know who the JA directors are, or whether they are actually Radio Hams and understand our problems, let alone the Chinese where you might as well be speaking a different language - oops, we already are. 🤣

73,
Alan - G4GNX
South Coast UK
Elecraft K4D / KPA500 / KAT500 / IC-9700




> On 22 Oct 2023, at 13:51, Dave <dave.g4aon at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Alan, G4GNX, it’s not unfair to expect an item purchased from a main dealer
> in the UK for the dealer to supply service, without the purchaser having to
> pay for shipping to/from California. A friend recently had to pay return
> shipping from the USA on a K4D warranty repair for an item purchased from
> W&S…
> 
> It’s a different matter if someone purchases a product directly from
> Elecraft.
> 
> At least with the main Japanese equipment there are service manuals freely
> available (eg FTDX101D, TS890S and IC-7610) and dealer/distributor UK based
> service.
> 
> By comparison, with Elecraft you are completely out on a limb with their
> later equipment.
> 
> Dave G4AON
> K4D, KPA500, KX3, K2 and K1