Hi.

I think that is like saying that a Porsche is way over-priced because you 
can buy a Honda for less.

I have yet to talk to anyone who has one of these radios who is sorry that 
they spent the money for it.  It goes back to my original point--you get 
what you pay for.  The truth is, however, that many operators are not that 
discriminating about their tastes in receiver design, and the stuff coming 
out of Japan is good enough.

I do, frankly, notice differences in pricing based on brand, however, with 
some exceptions, but generally, for comparable radios, Yaesu will be less 
expensive, Kenwood will be somewhere in the middle, and Icom will usually 
be more expensive, and I've noticed that Icom routinely gets absurd on 
their accessory prices, to the extent that a cord that should cost you five 
or six dollars will be thirty or forty instead.  It is this last point that 
prompted me to make the remark that I did about Icom.

Don't get me wrong.  Icom makes some good products, along with a couple 
that are not so good.  But, I do think they get a little carried away on 
the accessories.

Ironically, what I think has happened with the radios is that the cost of 
the radios themselves have gone down, but the price of the accessories have 
gone up.

For example, I recently bought an Icom ICR75 communications receiver.  It 
was substantially less expensive than the Drake R8A that I bought in the 
late 1990's, and substantially less expensive than the Icom IC-R71A that I 
bought in the mid-1990's.  But, by the time you buy the filters, you are 
back to pretty much what you paid for the Drake with everything included 
stock out of the box.  I guess there ain't no free lunch.

What I do have to say is that on the whole, most of the radios work better 
than the radios did that I started out with thirty years ago, and I never 
see anything made these days that is as deaf as my old Heath HW16 was on 15 
meters.  Heck, I gave everyone that I could hear on 15 meters on that rig a 
599 signal report because if I could hear them with the HW16, they deserved 
a 599!

73, de Lou K2LKK



At 12:42 PM 7/7/2007 -0400, you wrote:
>Funny how in a post about things from Japan being overpriced you bring up
>elcraft which I believe is made here and is, to a lot of peoples' way of
>thinking, way beyond overpriced, so much so that they still rather buy the
>Japan made radios.
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Richard Fiorello" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2007 1:10 PM
>Subject: japan
>
>
> > Hi;
> > If everything from Japan is overpriced and everything from China might be
> > deadly what are we left with?  Nothing much being made in the good old u s
> > a.
> > Speaking of which, Has anyone had any more info or purchased the elcraft
> > k3?
> > Richard
>
>
>
>--
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>3:26 PM

Louis Kim Kline
A.R.S. K2LKK
Home e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
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Work Telephone:  (585) 697-5753