I have no experience of the Elecraft kits, but I suspect
that the packing density of components on their PCB's
would mediate against future maintenance and fault-finding?

Also, for Britland, AIUI, there are problems for the man-in-the-street
having to organise his own shipping and passage through customs?

A kit of our own design would not be subject to proprietary
trade secrets. If the AF amp was specced at, say, 1mw into
600 Ohms, then almost any AF amp chip would do the job.

While on the subject of fault -finding, one RX which sticks in my
mind as being very easy to repair was the R210, because all the
aluminium chassis (pl?) folded out on hinges for easy access.

As part of being a _REAL_ Radio Ham is maintaining our own
gear, then there is food for thought in this area.

"Paul Burridge" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 13:00:48 +0000, Brian Howie
wrote:
In message , Airy R. Bean
writes
I wonder if we as a NG might put together a design
for an HF rig that could be built with ease by novices
and experienced constructors alike?
Elecraft already do a range of these
http://www.elecraft.com/
Good but expensive, aren't they?
It would be great to see the people on this group design one here. It
would be invaluable info for those interested in furthering their
knowlege of the hobby and maybe the end product could equal or exceed
the Elecraft specs at a lower price?