Chinese transceivers - a wake-up call?

The English manual for the  KN-Q10 QRP radio kit from China is now available. See http://www.qsl.net/bd6cr/knq10manual.pdf .

It seems like more and more of these kits/rigs are starting to appear from China at very competitive prices. Most seem (to my eyes) to be immature (amateur looking) designs and it could be a few years yet before we see real competition to the likes of Yaesu and Icom. Up to now these Chinese radios look like "back shed" designs unlike the mature, professional jobs from Japan.

But mature Chinese designs are coming!  Be in no doubt.  When it happens big-time it will be a bombshell to the Japanese manufacturers: expect real price competition, leading to offshore, lower cost, assembly by Yaesu and Icom. Expect to see the FT817 back at £350 (or less) next year or the year after.

[Incidentally, every blog and Facebook entry seems to need at least one correction. I am assuming this is not my keyboard but because of my stroke. I am not a good typist and have to look at the keyboard, more so now than I recall in the past. I keep putting the letter "i" where it should be "u" and missing out the odd letter. I also seem to have lots of "n" letters where they should not be. My apologies if you see errors.]

Chinese QRP transceivers

In my recent analysis of good value QRP radios I ignored the recent Chinese entries into the market. As far as I can see, these are still immature products, but they are getting better by the day. For example, see http://www.wouxun.us/item.php?item_id=302 . I judge this by how prepared would I be to buy a Chinese radio. The answer is not yet.

The Chinese HF SSB/CW transceivers are REALLY coming.....

Steve G1KQH has alerted me to a new QRP HF multi-mode transceiver from China that is available on eBay. The English translation leaves a lot to be desired, but this again signals that the Chinese are starting to get very close to marketing credible HF transceivers that we can expect to see sold by the likes of Martin Lynch and Waters and Stanton. In my view we are 12 months away from this point, but when some really decent HF rigs become available be prepared for some VERY tough times for Yaesu, Icom and Kenwood.

See: http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Whole-ham-kn920-kn-920-utrashort-wave-ham-radio-station-equipment-shiortwave-SW-free-shipping/926979_1075987935.html

On the same theme, Hamshop in the Czech Republic has announced it is the EU dealer for the single band KN-Q7A SSB transceivers from CRKITs in China. These are neat little single band 40 and 20m transceivers available as kits or ready built. They are getting rave reviews on eHam.net.