Brian, I will only take a small issue with you. I agree we should support
any company that brings good, cost effective products to the HAM market. And
yes the company should support these products for a reasonable period of time.
But as soon as these products become non competitive, just
I couldn't agree with you more strongly.
Bruce - W8FU
-Original Message-
From: elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net
[mailto:elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Brian McInerney
Sent: Friday, January 07, 2011 4:29 PM
To: elecraft@mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Elecraft] GENERAL COMMENTS
I don't disagree with Brian's plaudits for Elecraft's focus on customer
service but that wasn't the primary reason that the companies he sited
went out of business. In a book entitled The Innovator's Dilemma, the
author showed that large companies get caught when technologies change.
Heath, Drake,
I wasn't active in ham radio at the time of Heathkit's demise, so I don't know
what they were doing or not doing in the ham radio arena, but they certainly
were't lacking for expertise in solid-state electronics. I built their AR-15
stereo radio kit while I was on a Navy ammunition ship in
I believe Heath and Drake had the first two synthesized HF amateur
transceivers on the market. (SB-104 and TR-7) And both had solid-state
gear before that. I don't think their problems were being late adopting
new technology.
IMO Heathkit went belly-up because of poor execution on a number of
What killed Heathkit was that the Big Three were able to bring products
to market that were cheaper and had more features due to mass production
and, in the case of Kenwood, had a contempary and stylish product.
Heath did not catch up until the early '80s and by then it was too late.
To a
You could say the same of me and Elecraft - I new of Elecraft's reputation and
many of my club friends have K2s, but I was not happy about the looks and
display of the K2 (ok, so I know better now).
I was about to buy an FT-2000 when the K3 was announced - that was it for me -
I put the money
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