Nigel KC8NHF/G8IFF wrote: Most people, I would imagine, build primarily as a means of saving money. There's no point in building something if I can buy something similar for less money.
---------------------------- But there is a point: it's fun. It might be fun sitting at the controls of the latest "Mega-blaster" rig from one of the appliance companies, swinging the beam around on top of the 30-meter pole working DX, running up a top score in a contest or keeping a sked with a buddy. It might be fun patiently calculating voltages and current, working out a likely circuit, then assembling circuit after circuit until we have something uniquely ours that works. It might be fun following along carefully the instructions in a kit and marveling that it actually works when we're done. For some, having fun is having a rig with state-of-the art performance. A competent engineer with access to a well-equipped lab and plenty of time and money can almost always get a better rig building instead of buying. It takes a lot of knowledge, time and resources. For anyone who does not have all three, it gets more difficult. Sometimes a kit can provide a better price/performance ratio than an appliance, as Nigel alluded to. Over the years I'm sure that kits have provided rigs with performance and price that many operators could never have found any other way. Elecraft succeeded in doing that with the K2. Not only is it a kit, it is an acknowledged top performer on the HF bands. That's a very useful reason for building a kit. Sometimes that reason gets lost among all the builders for whom the goal of building a kit is the joy of putting a box of parts together and seeing it work. Like the reason we do just about anything else in our hobby, there are many different reasons for doing what we do instead of picking up a telephone or logging onto the internet. Ron AC7AC _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
