I too am an 'old' K3 owner (in more than one sense). I have K3 #0007.
Yes, /seven/. I was one of the incredibly lucky members of a focus group
when the K3 was still in prototype form.
I love my K3 as much as anyone can 'love' a radio. But I agree with
Dave, Joe and Ian that the K3 still has some rough edges.
My analysis is that this is an economic problem. Elecraft has to pay the
bills, which they can't do unless they sell stuff. I once suggested to
Wayne that he charge something for 'premium' firmware, possibly with
specialized features that not everyone would want. That would give them
some revenue to finance continued development for existing products.
He told me -- in no uncertain terms -- that Elecraft would never, ever
charge anything for firmware updates.
In any transaction you get what you pay for, and we have no way to pay
for continued K3 development.
On 4/3/2014 2:12 PM, David and Dianne on Comcast wrote:
Joe, W4TV and Ian, GM3SEK; I found both of your posts to be spot on with
me and very insightful.
I own K3 #371 and have been disappointed with the lack of its further
development in the past 18 months or the "finishing" of some features as
mentioned by Ian.. And as much as I have tried, really tried, for SIX
years to adapt to the "tap and hold" button feature...it's not for me.
When new, the K3 was a blast to own, to use and to participate in the
development of it for about the first four years. But my attitude
towards it has changed in the past two years or so.
It's not the the K3 is "bad", far from it, but it could be refined into
an even better rig rather than into an apparent development stepping
stone for the KX3 which holds no interest here for me. To me, one of the
shortcomings of SDR is that the promise of on-going support and upgrades
is usually not fulfilled in the long run, for myriad business and
technology related reasons. I view promises from any manufacturer (TT,
ICOM, Kenwood, Flex etc.) concerning future, long-term firmware
development with great skepticism. It never continues past a certain
time-frame which is usually ends much sooner than one initially
expects. As for updated/redeveloped K3 boards to be forthcoming, I hope
... but expect not. So I am not holding out hope for any further
meaningful development for the K3. Elecraft has been far better with it
than most but it appears that the K3 with 8000+ units sold is now a
mature product which will see refinements and enhancements as rarer and
rarer occurrences if at all.
I have found myself contemplating parting ways with the K3 and Elecraft
of late being drawn back to using my TT Corsair II and Omni V.9 more
and more. Highly modified by me, they compete very favorably with the K3
for my op style and expectations. (IMO TT has gone in a very strange
business direction of late which causes me to wonder what they are doing).
Everyone is entitled to their personal opinions and for most the K3
seems to still be the epitome of HF rig evolution. That's fine. I mean
you no bad will nor is my intention to convince you otherwise.
But after six years I still miss my dedicated band switching (with
stacking registers) and I still don't like Kool-Aid regardless of
flavor. ;-)
73 de N1LQ-Dave
--
73,
Vic, K2VCO
Fresno CA
http://www.qsl.net/k2vco/
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