A great many people purchase what they feel others will admire or that has the correct "look and feel" based on their personal bias. Objective performance of a rig may be nowhere near the top of their list of decision-making criteria.
A life-long home brewer, I've had other Hams tell me they'd never consider building a rig from scratch because they do not have the money or resources to make it look "professional" (i.e. factory-assembled). Sometimes it's not even the Ham but the XYL who refuses to have anything in the house that doesn't "look right". (Shoot back in the 1950's and 60's Collins used to run ads directed at XYLs telling them to insist 'hubby' get one of their rigs because of its neat appearance on the desk!) Personally, I'm just happy if my creations work. We can never make everyone we know happy. The goal, I think, is to avoid making others unhappy. Ron AC7AC -----Original Message----- There's the rub members of my local club were not overly interested in my K3 as it doesnt have all the knobs etc on the front panel, you cant change the color of the display and it isnt heavy I really find that sad ,, I would get lost from time to time placing my TS 850 in a unknown state by accidently pushing a wrong button ,, hasnt happened on the K3 the GUI is great but simple and some think simple relates to poor or ineffective as I am a casual operator and dont use 1/10 the features avaible but wanted a rig that would hold up to some of the nasty krap on HF ,,, K3 Rocks,, was fun to build and has great support Bob K3DJC ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html