Hi Herb, On Thu, Nov 18, 2004 at 11:48:04AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I am Herb Winn a new ham (kc8ylj). Congratulations on the new ticket--you're in for a great ride! I've been a ham now myself for (counting on fingers) 17 years, and it's the best hobby in the world!
I was going to try to build a kit for my first > rig but am not sure now. I found the elecraft web and have noticed that all that > is posted is troubles with kits. Is this common ? if so i'm not going to try a kit. Let me see if I can put this into some kind of perspective. First, a disclaimer: I'm all thumbs. I have never built an Elecraft kit. I've never built a Heathkit. About the most I've done is build a dipole antenna (with my elmer's assist)--I'm totally blind and haven't tried my hand at the soldering iron, especially not with those teeny tiny parts. OK, so now that you know I have absolutely no experience, I'll proceed to give some opinion on something I have no firsthand experience on. (Hey, if it's good enough for everyone else... :)) You say that all you see are troubles with kit building, and that's a fair observation. There are a lot of posts about different problems people have had putting their shiny new radios together. Consider, though, the nature of this list. It's a support list. By its nature, what you'll see here are requests for help. Naturally, you'll see a lot of people who are very happy with their rigs, too, but to expect a support list where no support is needed is at least unrealistic. So how about let's frame this a little differently, and maybe your perspective will change? If you notice the problem reports, you will also notice the number of solutions offered and troubleshooting tips presented. I'd say at leasst 90% of problems posted here are solved, solved satisfactorily in fact. Problems that aren't immediately solved by the user community are solved in one way or another by the Elecraft team, a very professional, caring, and extremely competent lot who know their products inside and out, backwards and forwards, and can not only fix a problem but can tell the rest of us how, too. You sure won't find that with the Alinkenwoodcomesu rigs! But to your original question, implied if not asked; should your first rig be a kit? I guess the answer really depends. What are you looking for? Do you like the challenge of building? Do you want to be able to tell your friends you built your rig yourself? Do you want to see how it works, nuts and bolts, up close and personal? Do you like a technical challenge? If so, then a kit is likely for you. If, on the other hand, you want to pull it out of the box, hook it up, and make it go, you probably don't want a kit yet...unless someone else builds it for you. I won't lie to you. The K2 is absolutely a top-flight rig, and you'll be hard pressed to find one that's a better performer for its intended purpose. I'm a very happy K2 owner myself...also a happy KX1 owner. But is it for you? I expect you'll find a very strong positive bias on this list. Of course, you could compromise; get a mass-produced rig for your first (how about visiting a swap and finding something in good shape that isn't brand new but perfectly serviceable?) Get a mass-produced rig and then get a station accessory in kit form to see how you like building. BTW, if you're looking to save money by buying a kit, you may well find that you aren't saving a bunch...but on the other hands, diehard builders will tell you that the experience can't be bought at *any* price. Vy 73, and again--congratulations, and welcome aboard! -- Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV | Alena Grace's proud papa! Phone: (814) 455-7333 | Born: 04/06/2000 in Donetsk, Ukraine Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Adopted: 10/07/2004 in Mariupol, Ukraine http://buddy.brannan.name | _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
