Joe:
Ahhh, Product Marketing/Management. I miss it so. :)
> Very bad design with slick marketing.
You mean it was designed by Sony Broadcast? :)
Your points are dead on. But I think there is more. It may be that in the
next two years, they will be able to offer you the upgraded TS590S(G) with a
real dual receiver system and quality IF filters, or they will bail from the
market altogether. Successful patterns are repeated in Product Marketing.
This looks to me like a "stalling" tactic while working on proving market
segment competitiveness to help make a decision; continue to play or fold?
More than likely, funds were limited because they were starved for product
development resources while merging with JVC, and Corporate wants better
data to see if the Amateur Radio market makes sense, so they chose to stay
with the basic TS570 "platform" and "enhance" it much in the same way
Betacam became BetacamSP (some added signals here, some metal tape there.
Presto!).
Good Marketing will take care of the rest! "We build Legends" is
"performance by association" from the era when there were resources for
product line development and R&D. There's still a lot of Goodwill from the
TS950/TS850 days! Even from TS520 days!
And Larry, you're right, from a technical perspective, the 590 receiver
schema is really Goofy!
But they will sell a ton of them, as will Ten Tec with the Eagle, which is
the 590's true competitor IMHO!
Then there is the Icom Behemoth. I still think that all the Icom Marketing
folks are disciples of Alfred P. Sloan. Their product line looks exactly
like General Motors in the late 60's early 70's. Products from Cradle to
Grave, with a sports car and some trucks thrown in for good measure!
Elecraft's well targeted market niche is being attacked from above by the
FTdx5k and from below by the 590 and to a lesser extent, the Eagle. Most of
the erosion will be in the lower side of the equation. Main K3 competitor
is really the IC7600, and technically it leaves a lot to be desired and is
not as customizable, but undercuts K3 in price and it has the Icom "mystique
by association". Icom has done a masterful job at brand identity.
So the K3 niche is still rather exclusive, but eroding a little bit.
Frankly, Yaesu has just cannibalized the FTdx9k product line AFAIC! That
platform is a dead end now and must be awfully expensive to continue to
market, so I expect for it to quietly fade away.
Elecraft is a lot like Honda in the mid 70's. Pick the niche, build a solid
product and back it with uncompromising service, winning one customer at a
time.
-lu-w4lt-
K3 # 3192
----------------------
Message: 29
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 17:13:35 -0500
From: "Joe Subich, W4TV" <li...@subich.com>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] OT: QST's review of the Yaesu FTDX5000MP
To: elecraft@mailman.qth.net
Message-ID: <4ce1b08f.1050...@subich.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>> That makes absolutely no sense to me. Can you or anyone else here
>> well versed in radio design please explain to me why the Kenwood
>> engineers would do this?
The best guess is that Kenwood did not want to invest in 1) the high
performance front end (bandpass) filters for the non-amateur bands,
2) quality 6 KHz and 15 KHz (low frequency) IF filters, 3) give up
coverage +/- 500 KHz of the "first" IF, and 4) their unlocked DDS
synthesizer would not work above 33 MHZ (limiting down conversion
to a maximum frequency of 22 MHz).
Very bad design with slick marketing.
73,
... Joe, W4TV
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