Sunday, September 20, 2009

Narrow minds

Against my better judgement I got drawn into defending some of the criticisms of the Elecraft K3 made in my previous blog posting and on eHam. Needless to say this caused the predictable howls of anger from the Elecraft fan club. A couple of people suggested that if I didn't like the way a feature worked I should have sold the K3 (or not have bought it in the first place.) Others who to the best of my knowledge only use SSB or CW claimed that since the K3 was perfect for them there could not be anything wrong with it.

My suggestion that those who never operated digital modes were perhaps not qualified to give an opinion on whether my criticism of the K3's data mode was valid produced this gem of a reply from NZ0T: "I don't use digimodes and if I did I most likely would not have purchased a K3. Frankly if I wanted to pound a keyboard like a computer nerd I wouldn't even be a ham." Very enlightening!

I think someone at Elecraft should review the installation instructions for the crystal filters. It would appear that some users are installing the narrow ones in their minds instead of in the radio.

2 comments:

goody said...

Elecraft over the years has developed a cult-like following. I discovered this when the K3 shipping fiasco was in progress. If you raised concerns over something, the zealots attacked you. This was one reason I cancelled my K3 order. The "mojo" that I experienced with the K1 was gone. I was also "beat down" for objecting to the transmit "block out" of the 27 Mhz band, which made no sense for a rig clearly marketed for radio amateurs and a rig and company philosophy that epitomizes freedom and flexibility.

The K3 is a good rig, but if Kenwood, Icom, or Yaesu did some of the things Elecraft did with the K3, there would be some rather upset customers. I think Elecraft took advantage of the cult status that developed, with the early announcement (a year too early in my opinion), the order deposits which didn't offer any benefit to customers, and the delayed/in flux firmware features.

I'll probably draw some flak for this statement, but Elecraft rigs are one of the few that come with a religion as an accessory :-)

IW1AYD said...

Are you surprised Julian?
Really?
I could not believe.

It's a shame but I have to say that there are are o lot of peoples and so of OM that will defend anything with their sword or their scimitar: fanaticism, right? It's football, politic, name a thing and you could find handful and handful of fanatics at every corner.
It's a shame as I write but I also have to inform you that it this not only true true for any argument you name but also for ours beloved hobby. It seems inconceivable I know but it is.
But let me drill a little bit down.
Those narrow minds have on theirs agenda any brand of transceiver you could name. Just because at a time they own one or the other. So, each brand have to check theirs manuals where there is the procedure to install tight and large MF filter, as they (the brands) inverted tight and large band pass object for sure.
Also I recently received some “critics”, that are unaccountable, about my opinions for another brand of transceivers. I wouldn't get inside the matter. But was interesting to see how peoples like to conceal the worst aspect of theirs shining boxes. Pointing theirs finger to anybody wouldn't drink at all the marketing brochure as a bible.
One of the most worse critics that I received was about my language that isn't clear nor understandable. This could be true, but doesn't permit to drop facts. So,. Julian you wrote about facts in plain English, much more plain and clear than mine. After you received that and may be other silly words of criticism I am quite happy. Yes happy and I think you could easy understand why, HI. It is not the quality of the writing/writer nor the real chain of facts that anybody of us try to explain, like the way as we made ours opinion. They disagree because what you wrote and maybe what I wrote is out of the chorus. No matter of real facts. Would you like to be in the chorus and to sing a song that isn't yours? I think you will answer: “No thanks”.
There is yours history that speak for you. From my side I think it's quite the same, but with a little more private history: I don't have an interesting and full of real advices site as yours.
Anyway I don't have also a K3, nor I plan to buy one for several reasons that are explained not so explicitly inside the QST review of the K3 and some are well pictured by you also. If I get a real Elmer near me it would be great to build, head to head, a K2 for the purpose we are all here.

I hope to read more and more from you, many thanks for yours blog and what inside I appreciate since you discovered and informed me.
Don't take care of those as an ancient Italian sentence suggest: “Don't care of they but look and walk away.”
Thanks to anybody for the patience to reach this end.

Best 73 de iw1ayd Salvo