Interesting comment from Edwin VK2VEL re the boom in the Chinese Kit scene in response to the recent mention of the KN-Q7 40 m SSB QRP kit.
The KN-Q7 was designed by Ke Shi, BA6BF and has since been superceded by the KN-Q8, 9 and 10. As Edwin says “The kit (or ‘DIY’ in Chinese ham speak) scene in China is absolutely enormous”. I checked out his leads to the Taobao auction site (Wikipedia info) and the hellocq.net forum and quickly realised the limits of my minimal barely there Mandarin.
I also discovered via Google that you can find Taobao agents to purchase in your own language.
There are a number of designers busily producing some interesting looking sets.
The models include:
KN-Q9 by BA6BF - uses a DDS + PLL frequency synthesizer
TJ6A 6 bands SSB CW QRP Transceiver – available via eBay for about US$285
HB-1A 3 Band HF CW Transceiver by BD4RG
HB-1A 3 band CW Transceiver
Stumbled across Adam Rong’s BD6CR/4 site. Document about building a KN-Q9 and an image of a Thunder TH-300 2 band txrx by BD6RA.
As Adam explained in a prompt reply to my email, one significant hurdle to jump regarding these attractive radio kits is that the assembly manuals are generally not translated from Chinese. As the price advantage is firmly China’s way and the quality (by judging online videos etc) seems good, I would have thought there would ultimately be a significant international market. Also I suspect there’s a sizeable enough community of Chinese speaking hams – in China and overseas – who are only too willing to give this industry a boost by crowdsourcing the translation of the assembly instructions.
This aspect possibly explains why the NZ Feature Tech are still selling the KN-Q7, an effectively superceded model. I’ve seen the TJ6A – which seems more current – and other models on the Canadian Youkits.com site. There’s an information sheet, and a 23 page construction guide on the site. It’s hard to distinguish the Youkits site and an eBay store based in China and be sure which version of the set is on offer.
TJ6A 6 band CW and SSB transceiver
Another hurdle is the nature of the ‘market culture’. These great kits are assembled and sold domestically and the very act of selling them to an international market is difficult due to language barriers and significantly, sales barriers. It is very simply, a pain in the neck to buy any of these kits at the moment. First a buyer has to contact the seller directly and communicate intentions and negotiate prices. This is the most obvious problem. Then funds transfer is the next problem – the comparative inexperience in international buying and selling means the lack of convenient funds transfer systems. There is comparatively low credit card usage, and the same goes for Paypal and the like, and bank transfer seems to be the most popularly used method. Regardless of method, all will incur fees, which itself has to be understood by a seller that is possibly inexperienced in international trading. The international buyer probably has an ethical obligation to point these out to an inexperienced international seller, less the unsuspecting seller ‘gets burned’ in the process and gives up future international sales. Been there, done that, ain’t fun.
An american ham pointed me to your blog. Thank you for your introduction to Chinese kits. Partially that’s why recently I have received many inquiries from hams all over the world, even those people who can not write good English, but till now, I only helped one ham in Europe buy 2 KN-Q9. The main reason is not language barrier, nor international money transfer, although it is true that we cannot easily accept credit card. As I explained, helping the buyers to assemble the kit is very time consuming, and it does not make sense for me to translate a whole user manual just for a customer or two. If I add this amount of cost to the kit, as the price is very transparent by searching taobao.com, nobody can understand why they have to accept this kind of “different standard”, adding relatively high international freight, the overall price can be still attractive, but not very.
I am now considering another way. Just like Elecraft K3, probably it makes sense to offer assembled board kits with chassis, and it will make less trouble. Also, I may need to re-engineering for overseas customers, according to feedback from customers, and find a partner overseas to help with the service. But first of all, I need to find more time to do it, hihi.
Adam,
You may want to take a look at how Tony Parks runs his Softrock kit operations. Although he is an American, he has found effective ways to cope with the two issues you raise, the shipping costs and the support efforts. On the shipping front, he is keeping the shipping costs low by (1) not providing enclosures, just boards and parts, (2) using small boards, which he can do because he uses a lot of SMD parts, down to SOIC, SOT, and 0805 (but not smaller), so he can ship in padded envelopes rather than boxes. Another useful thing he does in terms of shipping is to ship large kits in two parts, one padded envelope for each, a couple of days apart. Apparently it helps some buyers avoid duty (I think some countries charge duty only on “expensive” packages with value of $50 or so, but not on low-value packages).
In terms of support, Tony only provides schematics, and he relies on two mechanisms for providing most of the support. One is the softrock40 Yahoo group, where kit builders ask questions and people who already built them answer. There A LOT of traffic on this group, and most questions are answered without Tony’s involvement. The mechanism other is Robby (http://www.wb5rvz.com/) who volunteers to provide very detailed building instructions to the kits. So again it’s not Tony who has to prepare these.
Tony still provide support when somebody emails him and on the Yahoo group, but it must be a lot less effort with Robby’s web site and the group then it would be otherwise.
As for the small boards and the use of SMD parts, Tony sold thousands of these kits, so clearly there are lots of Amateurs who can build with these parts.
Anyone know anywhere in SE Asia where it is possible to buy a monoband SSB/CW tcvr kit as per above..I would even consider buying a PCB only. What about the Thunder 300? are there any English speaking outlets for these ?
The HelloCQ site being in Chinese/Mandarin is not going to work for me. … otherwise it is off to India or perhaps Far circuits in the USA (Arrl PCB site) for me. Even a PCB for the old KNQ7 40m monobander 10 W radio would be of real interest to old TimFid if someone can tell me where to get one. The NZild place that was selling them has folded up its tent and morphed itself into the Weightless Economy (Featuretech… featuretech.com or .com.nz was the old name). All ideas welcome on this one. Cheers from Melbourne, Oz
In response to Tim Fid comments about http://www.featuretech.co.nz This business has folded but I managed to contact the principal and he still has a few HB-1A units. The difficulty is that a proper English assembly manual is not available. Let us know if you’re still interested.