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Author Topic: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4  (Read 2333 times)

N2DTS

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Re: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4
« Reply #30 on: June 02, 2021, 07:18:07 PM »

If you shop around, you will find you can not buy most radios if you want new.

The party never really ends, but everyone seems to be taking a time out because of chip shortages and workforce problems.
The US is in a much better position now then most other countries but the chips do not come from the US...

I don't think its Elecrafts fault that Covid happened....


While there's no question the K4 (D, HD) will be a very capable contest radio, its inability to timely get to market is going to cost them big time. While many were waiting to get delivery, they were going with the IC-7610 in contests for the past few years, and realizing the extraordinary capabilities of it. And up to $2K less than the proposed prices of the new Elecraft models. Real-world, the K4's performance probably won't be much different than a K3S + P3, just an all-in-one model. From the talk of my hard core contest friends that currently use K3's, they're not planning to make the switch.

Case in point, a recently constructed huge M/M contest station here in Arizona, used (5) 7610's, (1) K3, and (1) Flex 6600 in this past weekend's CQ WPX CW contest...18.5M points. A few participants were well known world-class operators, and they gave the 7610's a big thumbs up.

Being very late to the party, time will tell how successful the K4 line will be.

Bob K7JQ
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K7JQ

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Re: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4
« Reply #31 on: June 03, 2021, 05:07:20 AM »

If you shop around, you will find you can not buy most radios if you want new.

The party never really ends, but everyone seems to be taking a time out because of chip shortages and workforce problems.
The US is in a much better position now then most other countries but the chips do not come from the US...

I don't think its Elecrafts fault that Covid happened....


I agree that COVID put a crimp in every manufacturer's production. But the current two-receiver, SDR based stand-alone "box with knobs" and built-in panadapter...Icom IC-7610, Flex 6400M, Yaesu FTDX-101D...have been in ham's shacks for 4, 3-1/2, and 2 years respectively. Long before COVID ever happened. Elecraft introduced the K4 over 2 years ago, and supposedly is just starting to ship the first batch of orders from back then. Yes, COVID probably hurt them the most.

I'm just saying that with Elecraft being late to the party with the K4, hams have had a lot of time to use the other competitive radios, and are finding out their capabilities are just fine at lower prices.
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KX2T

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Re: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4
« Reply #32 on: June 03, 2021, 07:56:19 AM »

I agree, the K4 is the late one at the party plus many ham's have bought either the 7610 or the FTDX101D already and to sell them at a little bit of a loss then pony up the higher cost of the K4 and which ever model you desire is another two or so kilo bucks for not really any better performance. I also look at the current companies also improving the radio's they currently have in production, the MKII version with Yaesu or a Pro version on the Icom but in Icom  case a new 7300 or something in between that and the 7610. I also find it hard to believe that the chip shortage will continue, there should be other companies that will step up to the plate and bat up cause its effecting more than just our radio's, its almost everything we use in electronics.
I also feel that Elecraft is the type of company that doesn't buy the parts before the real production starts and when they buy its only when they have a certain amount of orders in place, believe it or not they are still a small company so there is always that slim line to walk down. You also have that even though they have beta testing in the field with the K4 rigs the real test is once mass production starts not just on a few samples so things can change real fast once there are a few hundred rigs out in the field.
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VE3WGO

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Re: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4
« Reply #33 on: June 03, 2021, 08:40:15 AM »

It is almost certainly the case that for many of those radios that were already in production like the 7610, 6400, 101D, etc, they had their supply chains up and running, and even had stock in hand before Covid19 and chip shortages started.

The K4 on the other hand was/is trying to ramp production DURING the Covid19 and chip shortage.  Much harder to do.

It goes to show the high price that domestic companies have actually paid for choosing to outsource almost all of your critical manufactured goods and know-how (PPE, pharmaceuticals, silicon chips, LCDs, RF filters, tool and die making, metal foundries, etc etc etc) to another country that might not always have your best interests in mind.  Beware of fans of "globalization".

73, Ed
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K7JQ

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Re: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4
« Reply #34 on: June 03, 2021, 09:30:46 AM »


It goes to show the high price that domestic companies have actually paid for choosing to outsource almost all of your critical manufactured goods and know-how (PPE, pharmaceuticals, silicon chips, LCDs, RF filters, tool and die making, metal foundries, etc etc etc) to another country that might not always have your best interests in mind.  Beware of fans of "globalization".

73, Ed

Unfortunately, the choice of business plans and risks of being in business in today's world-wide economy. I honestly wish them well, and hope they sell a bunch of K4's. Based on their quality and customer service, I think they will.

But it doesn't negate the fact that the others were first to the party (well before COVID), and ate their lunch. Built-in panadapters/waterfalls and recent SDR platforms have been around for awhile, and Elecraft was simply too slow to respond.
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WB8VLC

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Re: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4
« Reply #35 on: June 03, 2021, 11:47:28 AM »



The K4 on the other hand was/is trying to ramp production DURING the Covid19 and chip shortage.  Much harder to do.

It goes to show the high price that domestic companies have actually paid for choosing to outsource almost all of your critical manufactured goods and know-how (PPE, pharmaceuticals, silicon chips, LCDs, RF filters, tool and die making, metal foundries, etc etc etc) to another country that might not always have your best interests in mind.  Beware of fans of "globalization".

73, Ed
[/quote]

The components used come from several different companies all over the world and not all are off shore, TI Linear tech, Freescale/NXP all have assembly houses in the US along with in other countries but if one critical component such as the LCD display used in the K4... which is probably from Japan is backlogged then that one single part shuts everything down.


Additionally; Elecraft designs and assembles the boards for their radios down in California and they claim that their local  contract board house which does the assembly work has limited access to their facilities.

 The restrictions for their board house is apparently due to both Semiconductor shortages as mentioned above compounded also because their contract board house workers have limited access to their facilities due to covid restrictions.

You cannot build a product if you can't get the parts and even if you have all of the parts, if your employees are restricted from going to work then even having all of the components in the world still won't do you any good at building and shipping the product.

If Elecraft had done it differently, like other US radio manufacturers did, they could have claimed that their work in the communication field was essential and then they would not have had any covid restrictions placed on their subcontractor board houses but even then without even having 1 part, still everything is stopped.
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N6YWU

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Re: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4
« Reply #36 on: June 03, 2021, 02:40:02 PM »

If Elecraft had done it differently, like other US radio manufacturers did, they could have claimed that their work in the communication field was essential and then they would not have had any covid restrictions placed on their subcontractor board houses

So I wonder if one of the differences was that Flex had some government contracts, which could have gotten their manufacturing line declared essential?

Another big difference is that Elecraft is in N. California, where first there were two major fire seasons, then where the health departments were among the first in the country shut businesses down due to cv19, and kept things shut down the longest.  Texas seems to have kept more things open.
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WB8VLC

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Re: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4
« Reply #37 on: June 03, 2021, 03:07:32 PM »

Yes, flex's govt division probably saved them from shut down but still I believe that Elecraft could have claimed an exemption somehow but it was also their individual Board house that they claim was a large contributor to shutting down their production.

This comes down to having ownership over every aspect of production, if you use a local board stuffer, even if you have access to all parts,  as opposed to having your own in house assembly department then you risk having flow disruptions.
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W9IQ

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Re: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4
« Reply #38 on: June 03, 2021, 04:08:24 PM »

I don't believe there is any amateur radio supplier that can justify the capex nor the labor, much less the quality control, to justify their own SMD line. There are too many good suppliers out there.

- Glenn W9IQ
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- Glenn W9IQ

God runs electromagnetics on Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the wave theory and the devil runs it on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday by the Quantum theory.

NI0Z

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Re: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4
« Reply #39 on: June 07, 2021, 08:28:08 AM »

The most important parameter when choosing a transceiver is what job do you want it for? Price, size/weight, ability to run from battery power on a picnic table, smooth “click free” break-in CW, ease of use with transverters, clean SSB transmissions (low IMD), useful spectrum scope, ease of use without needing to refer to the manual, and ability to operate on the same band as a near neighbor (low transmit phase noise and strong receiver).
73 Dave

This is why I liked testing the audio output from a radio in my reviews, after-all, its a lot about what you can hear in both good and bad conditions.  I liken it to this, you buy a high-end FM Stereo Receiver because specs wise it has the best receiver only to realize that the whole processing from signal to audio is all part of the equation.  If the audio sounds like crap, the specs and test don't mean squat.

73
NI0Z

VR2AX

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Re: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4
« Reply #40 on: June 07, 2021, 11:31:58 AM »

There was a ham review of one which got removed. What goes?
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OK4FX

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Re: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4
« Reply #41 on: June 07, 2021, 11:57:19 AM »

I saw it too. And, IIRC, the review was about pre-production unit. Maybe NDA is a reason for removing the review?
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Mira OK4FX

K7JQ

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Re: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4
« Reply #42 on: June 07, 2021, 12:11:18 PM »

There was a ham review of one which got removed. What goes?

There are still two reviews here on eham. But they are from N6XI and N6TV. To my knowledge, they are "field test" radios provided and authorized by Elecraft. Not from the supposed recent production shipments of original orders to the hams that put down deposits two years ago. On their website, Elecraft claims to have been shipping for the past one to two months. Strange that we haven't seen any reviews from those batches.
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N2DTS

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Re: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4
« Reply #43 on: June 07, 2021, 03:20:02 PM »

Most people do not post reviews.
The Anan 100B has been out for 10 years and has ONE review, mine.
Icom sold a billion 7300's and there are a lot of reviews, but only about .001% of owners did a review...
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K7JQ

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Re: Sherwood Review of the Elecraft K4
« Reply #44 on: June 07, 2021, 03:51:47 PM »

Most people do not post reviews.
The Anan 100B has been out for 10 years and has ONE review, mine.
Icom sold a billion 7300's and there are a lot of reviews, but only about .001% of owners did a review...

That's true. But the Anan, although a great SDR radio, is really not very popular with the masses. The K3 and K3S have 256 reviews between them...very popular with DXers and contesters. With the K4 anticipation over the last two years, and Elecraft claiming they're being shipped, you'd think we would have seen at least a few from non-beta testers.
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