I can think a few reasons, in addition to the aforementioned reduction in inventory costs and shipping charges. It makes for smaller PCB assemblies - less copper/solder, etc. smaller packaging means less resources. If the foundries don't need to produce huge volumes of plastics, ceramics and other materials, then they may be able to improve the purity and quality of the materials also. It leads more toward throw away modules which can fit in you're recyclers bin. If all I had was one radio, I wouldn't care too much how big it is but wouldn't expect a truck load of features either, like we get now. With three rigs on the desk, it's nice they all fit on it. So there is a strong 'green' incentive from many angles. The average refuse company in CA now collects a $20-$35 fee for that old monitor. Thank goodness for the flat screens! I remember the first transistor radio I had - a Regency. Cost $65 in 1956. Ge transistors too, and it ate those 22v mercury stack batteries for a snack. But what a dream to carry around while delivering papers after school. (I think I needed so many batteries from falling asleep at night listening to it.) So the tiny parts make it harder to kit build - wait til it comes in fully integrated VLSI. That's already revolutionized the PC business. I see the entire radio in a couple chips sooner than you can imagine. The ONLY reason its not there now is the lack of volume in those markets. Case in point is the cellphone or maybe the pda is a better example - with video graphics, it's a better computer than we had 15 years ago, camera, music all day, actually more music in one of those than my entire collection of 40 years. It goes on and on. If we have a reason for 20 or 30 million people to be hams - the K4 will probably fit in the palm of your hand. PS I love to build kits and really miss Heath. I'm buying up as many QRP and other kits as I can to fill the future void. After that I guess we'll just need to design some. Al WA6VNN
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