By far, the most talked-about and popular item at the Dayton Hamvention this year was the Elecraft K4 Transceiver, which is planned to drop later this year. Elecraft was taking pre-orders during Hamvention, and they said they sold quite a few, so I suspect to see lots of these radios on the air by year's end.
I'm an Icom man but I am reserving one. I've been through three K3s and now on the K3S which is better. But they don't have the "feel " of the current popular Japanese radio. To me and I've had all the radios, the 7300 is still the best bang for the buck at under $1,000 now. It looks like the K4 has the panel layout and styling of the Japanese radios with a modern ergonomic feel. But I think the final price is going to be quite a bit higher than the 7610. With all the new modern SDR radios the human ear can't detect the difference of any of the top 10 current radios. So it boils down to personal preference and what you want to pay for. I'm sure the K4 and all its versions are going to be good radios but I'm not sure about value and price. My main interest is in diversity receiving, using big Rhombic and V beam antennas and ths K4HD has that option, "If you can't hear then you can't work them".
Several places had the IC-7300 for $899 at Hamvention. I got the impression that $4199 was going to be the retail price when it drops, so that is about $1k more than the 7610. I do like the look and the feel of the K4 quite a bit, but just can't afford to drop that much right now. I'll see what happens by Nov/Dec when they are expected to release.
Yeah but one of the things that most people have not have dealt with if they have Japanese radios, with the Elecraft, that you have to pay for things like the automatic antenna tuner. Which if you look at the main brochure they don't say much about it being an option. But it is an option, who knows what that's going to cost probably in the $400 or more. The prices listed on the preordering are not firm it's a 10 to 1 tuner, so it is going to cost alot more then 7610 and I'm still not sure that it's going to be as good. Also with the Chinese trade War, component parts are going to cost them alot more to buy and they made it clear that the final price was based on the cost of Parts, the Japanese manufacturers have their own agreements in place with China and it's not affecting their prices. They made several statements that they were trying to secure supplier pricing and that was the reason for the pre-order.
If that is the base price, hate to see the fully loaded version. The way I operate, cw/ssb when my sced allows, I just dont see putting 4k into any radio. Yes, the IC 7300 is an awesome radio and will suffice for 90% of the hams. Very curious how tariffs are going to effect the market in many areas. Could put out nich companys like elecraft.
I was all set to buy the new FT101 version but was astounded to see it was incapable of two-port (for diversity for example) reception. Hard to believe Yaesu has not gone that direction; having the Elecraft K4 be another top-end diversity-capable radio only reimforces that need from the customers.
Tariffs are on wholesale, not retail. Likely your retail radio will go up roughly 10%. It depends on what kind of loss the retailer is willing to take on the margin--which is generally very thin in ham radio sales BTW. I doubt most of elecraft's parts are from PRC.
I have a 7300 and it's a great little radio, especially for the price. I also have a bunch of Elecraft radios, including a K3 w/S upgrades. Last week I was assembling a little Elecraft T1 QRP tuner and discovered that somehow I was missing one 3.3K 1/8w resistor. I sent Elecraft an email, received a reply almost instantly, and a few days later a small carton arrives, with a small envelope inside with 5 of the resistor I needed. For that kind of service alone, Elecraft gets my business. Not sure if I'm going to go for the K4, but will certainly consider it.
That is one of the main reasons I purchased a Flex-6600, diversity receive is a VERY underrated feature that works incredibly well.
I predicted that Elecraft would produce a K4; I did not, of course, know just how soon they would announce it. Does anyone know what features the superhet version will have that the others do not? Will the filtering really be that much better on it?
I built my early K-line back in 2011 and loaded my K3 with most of the options at the time; I liked it so well it quickly became a keeper for me. I doubt I would notice much difference if I somehow upgraded to a K4 (my K3 is capable of diversity receive and a lot more). In my opinion, one key advantage of a K3/K3S or best bang-for-the-buck Icom 7300 over the K4 is portability; even loaded up with the 100-watt module, 2m transverter, internal 10 to 1 ATU, etc.is they are easily carried about (unlike the K4 which appears bigger and probably heavier). If anyone knows the weight of a loaded K4-K4HD I would be curious to know but I don't plan on getting one unless I win a lottery and really have money to burn. Even then, shelling out big bucks for another rig when I am not nearly as active as I once was is not justifiable for me. My xyl would turn me into a silent key in no time if she ever found out, too. It's also interesting to see that Elecraft finally came out with a KPA1500 as well as a sucessor to the K3/K3S after many, many months of queries, rumors, questions and clamoring even though Wayne and Eric always said they'd never do that. Never say "never" is the lesson here. Elecraft is a great company with a large following for good reason and I hope they continue to do well. As someone else pointed out earlier, though---an Icom 7300 is more than adequate for 90% of us. If I do ever buy another rig it will either be a transverter or two for 222 and 1296 or else an Icom 9700 after the price comes down a tad. As for anyone who does pull the trigger on a K4---hey---we only live once, right? Enjoy! 73, Jeff