Rick, Not withstanding a rather poorly worded response, LDG's comment makes pretty good sense.
The K3 doesn't support external auto-tuners, it has no hardware handshake protocol, such as Yaesu AT-300 or Icom AH-4 protocol. So there is nothing for LDG to support. There are many reasons to run an external auto tuner rather than an internal tuner other than tuning range. For instance, if you have a no-tune amp and an external auto-tuner capable of handling the amp, you don't need the internal tuner in the transceiver. In fact it's rather a nuisance since it could complicate communications between the high power external tuner and the rig, and at best be a waste of money. I see this as a functional short-coming in a high end transceiver or really any transceiver. I think there is a plan to implement Yaesu AT-300 external auto-tuner handshake protocol in the K3 but I don't know when. 73 Jack KZ5A K3 #4165 -----Original Message----- From: elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net [mailto:elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Rick Prather Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2010 5:48 PM To: Phil LaMarche Cc: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net Subject: Re: [Elecraft] LDG The more I think about the silly response that you got from LDG I begin to realize why they don't have much regard for Elecraft as a market for their products. When you realize that most "off-shore" rigs have built-in tuners that will rarely handle more than 3:1 SWR they are a good market for them. But, the built in Elecraft tuners will usually handle up to at least 10:1 and in fact, in my experience, a higher mis-match than an LDG tuner it makes Elecraft users a pretty poor pool of perspective customers. Consequently, looking at their sales over the years they probably wind up with a pretty distorted view of the market share. Rick K6LE On 6/16/2010, at 12:20 , Phil LaMarche wrote: > This was LDG's response to my email: Short sighted! > > The Elecraft market is very small compared to the rest of the HF market. > Yes, it is big for the kit market, but still very little in caparison to the > entire HF radio market. > > Most of the big manufacturers sell more of one radio model than all of the > Elecraft radios ever sold (combining all models). > > Dwayne Kincaid > LDG > > > Philip LaMarche ______________________________________________________________ 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 ______________________________________________________________ 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