Ladies, gentlemen, and all the other species of HAM community, I apologize for such aggressive and somewhat insulting subject of my posting. But after reading all the "why I purchased Elecraft radio" reasons I felt like chirping in.
I like radios, I like to find out what I can do with it. I like building things with my own hands. I didn't have so much fun building fully loaded K1, K2, and KX1 in years... like... like.. like I had when I was assembling my own computer with nothing but pliers, 40W soldering iron and individually acquired spare parts back in 90es. It felt like I was giving birth to a baby or something - making sure that it is in the best state I could possibly make it. And I could also learn from it, a lot, in fact. Now, don't get me wrong, when it comes to the specs of K3 I bow my head to the designers of it - it's truly a one son of a gun radio. It's pretty much the heaven dream for CW. I know that. But there is one thing which makes me uneasy - it's not the radio I built. It's not even the radio I assembled. It's the radio someone else built, and all I am reduced to is plates arrangements and screwdriver turning. It's almost like I am not sure whether I should be thanking Wayne and Eric, or curse them. (Probably thank them more than anything...) My gripe with K3 is that even if I buy it, build it, and use it, I can't honestly say that I BUILD it. Simply because I didn't build it. With K1, K2, KX1 I learned a lot from its schematics, I was able to figure out what went wrong if something went wrong (just to prove to myself that it was me who was an idiot). I loved the process of making sure that I understand each and every piece of it, to the last capacitor, even if I don't understand the assembler code of its main controller (I spend enough time with computers to hate them thoroughly as it is). My problem is I can't do the same with K3. I'd love to own it. I'd love to use it. But I'd hate to build it. I am sorry if this posting makes no sense to all of you. I was simply trying to express my feelings... I think I'll try to find more money to build another K1 or K2. (Actually, I like K1 more, don't ask me why.) -- Alexey Kats (neko) ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
