In my opinion we have some of our priorities wrong.
I think we are placing too high of value on being "first", whereas bringing
a feature to market at an affordable price or perfecting its performance is
just as important, if not more important.
Fundamentally, do we (each of us) jump into the boat full of people liking
features or do we jump into the boat full of people liking performance?
Neither is right or wrong. Just two different camps. So there will be at
least 2 correct answers to all of these questions!
I'm in the performance boat. If a radio's fundamental performance is not up
to snuff, I don't care how many other features they add to the box. I don't
want it.
What the JA boys managed well was to bring out good little mobile rigs.
The TS-50 changed the world (thinking wise) and the IC-706 line changed it
physically. Having a lot of features (and bands) in these small boxes made
taking ham radio on camping trips a breeze. That was revolutionary.
But I'd rather go fishing or watch TV than try to run a contest with one of
these boxes!
My needs for my radio at home are quite different from my mobile needs.
With lots of space, having keyers or tuners built in is neither an advantage
nor a disadvantage. Good performance is a requirement.
With great expectations I tried the FT-2000 recently here on 40m using a 3
element beam at 100 ft. and I was seriously disappointed at Yaesu.
Feature-wise, this new rig even has a preselector built-in and we use (need)
preselectors for most rigs here in Europe for serious low-band work. So I
was anxious to see how it worked and seriously considered buying one.
Ugggghhhhh !!!
My bottom line is, the Yaecomwood companies are great for small portable
stuff, but for good home rigs (especially contest rigs), you have to pay too
much to get a decent box and it still does not match the performance of a
Ten-Tec box costing much less!
The best post so far on this topic was the quote from the guy rag-chewing
using the IC-7800 and stating that the performance of all the high end boxes
is about the same. I'm sure he is right, for his needs (rag chewing).
73
Rick
DJ0IP
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