Hi Conway, Through out the years with Elecraft, I feel they are successful in identifying a small but loyal market segment of customers.
As you have been aware, ham population is shrinking. My boy has no interest to play my whole list of radios though he got his ham ticket at the age of 16. Similar to you, I would wonder how long a pure ham radio manufacturer could survive. My comment on this has no regard to how long Elecraft will stay in its pure ham radio manufacturing. Within my limited knowledge of the radio industry, Icom earned most its business profit from insitutional contracts and business. Part of the knowledge and expertise gained from those contracts has been used in their ham radios. In other words, ham radio now becomes a 'by-product' of their successful insitutional contracts. I truly hope that Elecraft will stay in its current business and give the ham population an unique choice of products. 73 Johnny VR2XMC ----- 郵件原件 ---- 寄件人﹕ Conway Yee <[email protected]> 收件人﹕ [email protected] 傳送日期﹕ 2010/2/9 (二) 1:57:16 PM 主題： [Elecraft] On the advisability of selling kit radios The threads about a kit amplifier got me thinking. It is now 1999. The market is saturated with well established companies such as Yaesu, Icom and Kenwood selling high quality radios. Ham radio technology is stagnant with no major leaps in the horizon. The average amateur is aging rapidly with very little influx of new blood. The youth are all interested in computers and the internet. The days of Heathkit are long past; there is no way to save money building kit electronics. The only kit manufacturers sell small inexpensive radios that can be built in a few hours. Certainly there is no good reason to start a company selling a 100 Watt kit SSB/CW rig....OTOH Elecraft bet it could and it would appear that they are successful. It is now 2010. The same arguments are being put forward for an solid state HF amplifier. In addition, the legal liability of high current electronics is daunting. The population of customers of amplifiers is even smaller than that for 100 Watt kits. Are these arguments correct? I don't know but suspect that there would be a niche market for such kits as long as the manufacturer has no business presence in the US. Hopefully such a kit starts getting sold in the next few years. It sounds like fun. tnx. Conway Yee, N2JWQ ______________________________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________ YM - 離線訊息 就算你沒有上網，你的朋友仍可以留下訊息給你，當你上網時就能立即看到，任何說話都冇走失。 http://messenger.yahoo.com.hk ______________________________________________________________ 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
