Been a Kenwood man for years and switched over to K3S. Happy I did although my Kenwood did a fantastic job for me. The K3S will be my last radio. I always enjoy these threads, for obvious reasons. Back in the day, I raced a small block 68 Camaro at Englishtown NJ. Now that hobby was all about bragging rights!!! If you want the K4 and can afford it, get it, because Elecraft makes a good product. If you're happy with what you have then more power to you. This is a hobby and to each his own.
Back in those days I raced a Royal Pontiac prepped 64 GTO from Sanford ME to Englishtown and several other places for $100 a run. The Chevy 396 was coming on strong and by 70 it was a 70 Chevelle SS 454. Then married life and a rug rat was interrupting things for several years. Soon drifted into Street Rods that the family could fit into for long trips to the Nationals and other shows. Still have a 38 Buick Roadmaster 4 dr dual side mounted sedan with a 455 Buick and Turbo 400...rides like a dream at 70-80 on radials that look like bias plys Another good weather ride is a 68 Impala SS 396 convertible that was given a mild soup up treatment by the Chevy dealer in Asheville NC. I drove it to NH in 98. Carl
The really great thing about Amateur Radio today is that we have so much choice. Look at all the 100-watt-class HF transceivers offered new - we can choose from bare-bones models well under $1000 to super-deluxe loaded top-of-the-line ones. We have used gear from very recent to the 1930s that can be used today, if one knows how. We can homebrew, build kits, convert surplus and commercial gear to amateur use. It's all good! And while $4000 may seem like a lot of money for a "radio", when you adjust for inflation, it's cheaper than most top-of-the-line rigs of the past. Heck, when the TS-950SD was introduced almost 30 years ago, it went for about $4000....about $7500 in today's money.
Jim how do you account for this. World wide amateur radio use is on the decline. Empirical evidence in the U.S. points to there being a stark decline in recent history. Therefore, the demand for ham radio equipment should be falling yet the supply is increasing. That can certainly account for the sharpe decline in adjusted real prices. Certainly there is plenty of competition for the amateur radio dollar. Not understanding well the micro economics of the ham radio manufacturing business, I ask at some point given these price points and lower demand, is it not correct to believe the many equipment offerings seen today will soon be a thing of the past. Even further, can’t we expect to see the supplier market shrinking in the future. Meaning as the market adjusts to low prices and low demand some sellers will simply leave the market due to shrinking profit margins. Are we in the boom before the bust in ham radio equipment as manufactures take advantage of low cost components.
Hold on.....how do we know "world wide amateur radio use is on the decline"? Back when I got started, there were only about 250,000 US hams. Now there are over three times that many. Lots more bands and modes, too. Plus the rest of the world has seen growth as well. Look at the shack pictures of DX stations - most of them have pretty modern gear. Not like the old days! There's also the fact that a lot of hams are very specialized. I know hams who are only on the air for contests and when rare DX pops up. They have impressive stations and are good operators; it's just that their interest is focused on those things. Manufacturing costs are less due to automation and newer technologies. Consider that Collins made the 75A-x family of receivers for about a dozen years, and made about 12,000 of them, all models, from the 75A prototype to the last 75A-4. How many IC-7300s has Icom sold in just a few years?
Jim you know I have great respect for your opinion all things amateur radio. While looking back in time even after WARC there today are considerable fewer signals both state side and internationally on our bands. I do remember as a general in the 70’s having to wait routinely for an open spot to call. In the early 80’s as an advanced the general portion was crowded every day. Similar to to a contest day now. And I hear of the great renewal of amateur radio via digital. Again I remember in days gone by RTTY signals routinely filling band space. The digital activity of today seems insignificant to the RTTY days of old even considering signal width. The premise of my question stems from this experience. I understand you disagree with the premise. You could be exactly correct though. Perhaps today ears and a band scope are not the best methods to evaluate ham radio activity or in economic terms demand for ham radio. Instead the fact there are more and more amateur radio offerings including radios, amplifiers and other accessories tells the story. The increased supply of equipment from existing and new entrants into the ham radio market could add strength to your position and point to the conclusion my premise is wrong and does not hold water.
One area to check activity is the logs submitted in contests from 160 to microwave. These cover ARRL and CQ versions plus all the mini events that pop up over the planet. Dont forget Field Day where a lot less generator power is required than in the past with the huge 10-12 KW military surplus ones used by a club I belonged to. Carl
Hello Carl. I would not at all be surprised to learn contest involvement is at an all time high. As a kid the family talked my dad into the purchase of a ski boat. He purchased the boat and we used the boat some 8 times per year usually on special occasions. Ham radio is like that today I believe. Where in days gone by amateurs were more likely to radio daily. Today it’s more of an occasion that has hams on the air such as a contest. This majority that operate occasionally are purchasing new equipment. That’s why I believe there is a disconnect between on air activity and sales of new equipment.
Thanks for your kind words. You mean in the US HF voice subbands, right? Consider that the US HF voice subbands are wider than before. 50 years ago, 75 meters was 3800 to 4000 - today it's twice that. 40 meters was 7200-7300, now it's 7125-7300. Etc. Also, in those times the NTS was in full swing, with both CW and 'phone traffic nets every evening - and they were busy! The filters in ham rigs of the past were often....not that good. Consider the HW-101, which was insanely popular in its time; it may be the single most popular HF amateur rig ever made. The stock filter in an HW-101 was 2.1 kHz at the 6 dB points and 7 kHz at the 60 dB points - a shape factor of 3.333....! (The SB-100/101/102 used a different filter with a better shape factor). Many older rigs used wider filters (2.4 kHz and even 2.7 kHz). Many of us used receivers that weren't even that good. Today, with "modern" gear, the shape factors and overall selectivity are much better. Sadly, the sunspots aren't so cooperative. Here's a data point for you: The past couple of years I've been one of the 40 CW ops at a local multi-multi FD effort. Each year, we've made more than 1000 CW QSOs just on 40 meters, running 100 watts output. 20 is not far behind, last year we broke 1000 Qs on both 20 and 40 CW - each. Or do this: Tonight, at exactly 0300Z (11 PM EDST), listen to 40 meters starting at 7025 and tuning upwards. Also listen to 80 starting at 3525. You will hear....a few....CW stations until 0400Z But....is that really the case? In the old days 850 Hz shift RTTY was common, and RTTY folks tended to not run QRP because it took a good strong signal to get solid copy with most amateur-type TUs. Then came modes like PSK31, WSJT and others, including FT8, that operate quite well down in the noise - and they take up a few dozen Hz at most. I'm just saying that it can be difficult to measure actual use over decades, particularly when things have changed so much. Maybe. It could also be that there are more hams and more stations, but they aren't being used as much, except during contests or when a particular DX station pops up. That would explain both of our observations. When I got started, the big evening activity was TV. But, TV was limited, because even in Philly there were only the 3 major network stations, plus PBS. Many of the shows were not worth watching, and after a certain date in the spring it was all reruns until the fall. No VCRs or DVD players, either - and the basement shack was the coolest part of the house. Guess where a lot of us spent our time? Or consider how mobile operation has changed. Before cell phones took over, driving cut one off from the world, and being able to talk to others was a unique thing. (Hence much of the popularity of both amateur radio and cb in vehicles). But with cell phones, that novelty is gone; in fact, there's no escape any more! There's also the self-fulfilling prophecy of the "dead band" - if everybody listens and nobody calls CQ, every band will sound dead. Listen to 80 and 40 CW tonight from 0300 to 0400Z, 25 to 50 kHz up, though...... 73 de Jim, N2EY
Real radios have more and bigger knobs and not buttons squeezed right next to the big knob. It will be interesting what serious users will have to say about that.
Several other radios have buttons right next to the tuning knob. Yaesu in particular is very big on that, look at the DX101D for example.
The FTDX-101D is another example of Yaesus love affair with many many buttons but at least most are nice and in line on the panel plus the whole layout is far better than the K4 IMO....for whatever that is worth. The only Yaesu Ive ever kept is a 3rd hand FT-650 which is a rather scarce radio but the continuous RX from 24.5 -56 MHz lets me track propagation and not tie up other gear. Carl
