I generally get my icom accessories now from other companies or used. I've 
saved a ton on the W32A accessories that way.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lou Kline" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2007 3:13 PM
Subject: Re: japan


> 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]
> Work e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
> Work Telephone:  (585) 697-5753