My, its a bit quiet on the FT817 egroup front isnt it ? ever since
Paul W8KC suggested everyone to calm down by stop jumping up & down &
getting Yaesu to dump a couple of hundred $ on the price. I honestly
dont think it works this way Paul. I beleive that all the singing &
dancing excitement within this group can only justify Yaesu to export
the thing in the first place. (They originally manufactured it for
their market only !, being staunch montain back-packers in Japan) It
was
I take to be a thank you to their home buyers of Yaesu. But maybe I
am wrong, with such a product it must put Icom, Kenwood and maybe
Alinco scratching/banging their designer's heads together. Maybe the
other big boys have something similair but have been pipped to the
post? I for one know the current price of the Yen to the english
pound and if I find the price being near the ?1k mark as one
retailer
over here in the UK suggested (a profit of about 100% +) I will not
buy one, also the way the market with Amateur radio is going in
general I think ALL Emporiums worldwide should think before they
release a ridiculous seling price to us lot. after all the FT817 is a
qrp rig and I am sure the dedicated qrp lads would rather buy one of
those Australian hand held 160-10m rugged thingys (ssb/cw only) and
use their other 6/2/70 seperate gear than be ripped off by a Ham
retailer, or stick to building their own, as the qrp home-brew gear
is simpler & cheap!. We all know the approx cost of this rig and I am
sure its
worth a couple of hundred $ / ? on the Japanese price but thats
all. I also wish JA1MP was around to view the technology he
originally pioneered, (SSB & founder of Yaesu).
de John.
