Julian G4ILO wrote:
I think that the Japanese manufacturers are influenced most by the
Japanese market which, from what I've read, is a lot different to the
rest of the world. Many JA hams live in apartments, and have limited
antenna options. A lot are restricted to low power. In Japan, you can
(or certainly used to be able to) buy 10W versions of radios that are
only available in 100W versions here. If you're so restricted, you may
well be more interested in knobs, buttons and appearance than in
performance specs that you can't actually get any advantage from.
I think Julian has nailed it here, in that the Ikensu strategy has always been
essentially marketing-driven, and their experience base derives primarily from
their domestic market. But I don't think the mass appeal of radios with a sexy
appearance and sub-optimal performance is limited to Japan. We have plenty of
"substantially underinformed" (trying to be charitable here) amateur operators
right here in the USA, and I think the Ikensu features-first strategy will
continue to work in this market. Will the K3 impact sales of their top-end
super-premium transceivers? Probably. But how many of those radios do they
actually sell? Not many in comparison to the number of low-end and mid-range
transceivers they sell.
And of course the VHF/UHF FM marketplace is huge in comparison to the
high-performance HF marketplace as well, especially in this country where the
majority of new hams settle into a niche on a local 2M repeater and never go
beyond it.
So I wouldn't worry about Ikensu being badly damaged. :-) Not that we would
anyway!
Bill / W5WVO
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