I had the pleasure of helping out at the Elecraft booth at SeaPac recently and I also took a bit of time to go and listen to how Icom's booth was going...
The Icom booth guys seemed to be marketing guys who don't really do a lot of ham stuff. The Elecraft booth was being assisted by customers who were excited about the product enough to want to help out. Then finally the BIGGEST difference between the Icom, Kenwood booth and the Elecraft booth. People continually came up to us to tell us about their radios and how much they loved them. But the biggest piece of uniqueness is that every person I talked to could tell me their serial number off the top of their head. How many who own a IKY can state their serial number off the top of their head? Do I have some fun stories and did I have a lot of fun with my TS-450Sat? Hell yes. Do I feel the connection to that radio that I do my K3? Meh not even close. Its a different animal. Elecraft does a great job focusing on just our segment of the market and IKY generally sees the Amateur Radio market as a fairly small portion of its total revenue and applies attention to those customers accordingly. Thus I do feel like IKY spends time listening to and responding to Amateur Radio customers! But they've got other customers with a lot more money under their control that take president. ~Brett (N7MG) On Thu, 2010-06-17 at 19:49 -0700, Fred Jensen wrote: > Bob Naumann wrote: > > > What this tells us is that while us K3 types are devoted and loyal, we're > > just a drop in the bucket of the world-wide amateur market compared to the > > "big two". (Kenwood doesn't count until they come out with a real radio - > > then it once again may be the 'big 3'). > > Actually, I don't think it "tells us" this at all. I/Y/K manufacture and > sell a huge range of electronic products, not all radios in the usual > sense, and most of ones that are "radios" are for non-ham users. They > are all very large international companies, and no fooling, they make > good ham radios, no question. Elecraft on the other hand, sells ham > radio products only -- and very good ones that compete with the specs of > the others so well as to win in most categories. Coupled with the > issues of support, upgrade, and cost, E-radios are probably at the top > of the heap for many reasons. > > My KX1 is #697 [I think]. K2 is #4398. K3 is #642, but it has a couple > of hardware mods and is running FW Ver 4.03 as I type this, pretty much > up to date as of 17 Jun 2010. I have yet to see an update for my FT-847 > [which I like and use on UHF/VHF]. Actually, I don't think Yaesu even > knows I'm one of their customers, but Elecraft does. > > We need to be very careful how we compare radios and companies who make > them. > > 73, > > Fred K6DGW > - Northern California Contest Club > - CU in the 2010 Cal QSO Party 2-3 Oct 2010 > - www.cqp.org > ______________________________________________________________ > 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
