I imagine that many persons wanting K3/K3s have one, and so sales may not be as robust as a result. The many improvements over time have created a mature radio--and all essential improvements can be made to an early K3 (same with the K2). I appreciate Elecraft for this approach to building radios. However, this does mean that many of us are using aging K3s that work just as well as the new K3s. I have two K3 radios (so2r), one is about nine years older than the other one but they are both essentially the same.
It does seem that the prices associated with adding more options to the basic radio is different from the original sales philosophy of Elecraft: a top performing radio at a price that is lower because you buy only what you need and you can save even more by assembling it yourself. This still applies but not as well as it did with the original K3, first produced some years ago however! I never thought of Elecraft as an inexpensive radio (it looked inexpensive if you purchased the basic kit and nothing else); rather, I could see the savings in purchasing only what I wanted but still had the performance and I/O for the future. Finally, maintaining the K3 is far less expensive (compared to other radios) because many of us can do minor repair ourselves, with instructions provided by Elecraft technicians. 73, Will, wj9b CWops #1085 CWA Advisor levels II and III http://cwops.org/ -------------------------------------------- On Sat, 7/29/17, Bill W4ZV <[email protected]> wrote: Subject: [Elecraft] K3S Package Discounts To: [email protected] Date: Saturday, July 29, 2017, 5:50 AM http://www.elecraft.com/K3/K3.htm#K3SPkg I still question the wisdom of bundling the the preamp, USB, 630m capabilities, etc into the K3S. This went against Elecraft's original philosophy of keeping base price low and choosing only the options we really wanted. This resulted in inflating the base price which put it out of reach for many folks and further away from competing products (IC-7300, Kenwood 590 and Flex 6300). That must be hurting sales resulting in discounting. A viable option is to buy a recent used K3 and sell/purchase options to configure it as you want. Basic K3 prices are in the $1500 making this a viable alternative IMHO. 73, Bill W4ZV -- View this message in context: http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/Confused-about-K3-to-K3S-Migration-service-tp7626459p7632800.html Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ______________________________________________________________ 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 Message delivered to [email protected] ______________________________________________________________ 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 Message delivered to [email protected]
