And you know they have more complaints how? Someone elect you to keep track of it? I have seen complaints left and right about certain Icom radios failing. I loved my Kenwood TS-2000X I once owned but the dang thing had a birdie right in the middle of a popular satellite downlink.  The Yaesu 450 I owned had issues with ergonomics like too small of a tuning knob etc. etc. I worked in the retail end of the ham radio business. I've seen complaints about every type of radio out there. And yes, you are being ignorant! If nothing else changing the case would involve paying a lab to do type acceptance test again because of RF shielding considerations and such. You seem to want to  ignore that part of the money equation. Those test aren't cheap by any means. The big three afford such things for small radio upgrades by separating people like you from thousands of dollars for mediocre radios with substandard RX's.  A 600 dollar Flex 1500 RX beats radios out there that cost a couple of thousand easy. I know, I've compared them. Get over yourself, the Japanese manufacturers are laughing at you all the way to the bank!
Michael, W4HIJ

Every rig and  every brand out there has it's share of complaints against it and has detractors. All have faults. I have yet to find a perfect radio and I doubt one exist nor will it ever exist.  You show your ignorance by claiming that any off the shelf case could be used. Changing cases would not only involve re engineering but most important of all, it would require a new round of testing for type acceptance which isn't cheap. 

Only about 10 cycles on that battery.  It was really funny to watch, though!  I literally stopped traffic, spraying the poor thing down with a fire extinguisher in the middle of the street.

My understanding from the Dayton interview I just watched is that they didn't have a lot of options as far as continuing to manufacture the 5K. The vendor they got the cases from was discontinuing that type of work and getting replacements/retooling would have driven the price of the 5K up closer to that of a 6500. Especially a 5K with a 2nd RX option. Good radios get discontinued all the time because of parts sources drying up. 

The first Flex-5000s were shipped in August 2007. That seems like a pretty good run for an innovative radio. In terms of hardware, 5000s are very durable. Flex repair service is excellent.
 

Expect to see a flood of used Flex5Ks on the market, in addition to the ones already being sold because of the F6k, due to Flex discontinuing to manufacture the F5K.

-robert

JX and MJR.  The OP was looking for opinions on HRD.  If you have one, kindly offer it.  No reason to attack MY opinion.  I was not addressing either of you!

I am using the internal metering. I was under the impression that the Harbach power supply upgrade also replaces the meter resistor string, so that should be new. Am I not correct on that assumption?

Did you actually measure the HV line with something like a high voltage probe or are you relying on the internal metering?


The internal metering using 4 resistors to pot down the voltage. If the value of these resistors has drifted then your reading will be inaccurate. The original carbon resistors have most likely changed value over the years. One of mine was open circuit and the other two had changed values. I replaced them all.

As always be mega careful working around HV. You won't get a second chance.



Mark N1UK

Nearly any HF rig can be "opened up" for CB.

I have an iPad3 and it does not have 30-40 hours of use with a single charge. The best I have got is somewhere around 12 hours. 

Check this article out. Could be battery life will be changing in the future with the Haswell line of chips from Intel.

http://gizmodo.com/now-is-a-horrible-time-to-buy-a-laptop-496028699

I have to agree with W8JX on most of his responses except the part about them charging to fix 5.xx that part is yet to be seen!

IMO they would have been much better off if they just offered fixes for at least 5 years or two complete revisions which ever comes first that would be kind of Like how Microsoft does it.