Convince My Brother KK4TVR

Philip KA4KOE

I helped my older brother Eric KK4TVR get his ham ticket about 3 years ago. Believe me, I lost track of the amount of hours spent Elmering this man and spoon feeding hardcore radio engineering material into his leedle punkin' haid.

This being said, he is extremely excited about my purchasing a Flex 6300 and the impending delivery of my Maestro (sometime in early June per the company's latest message to me). Eric has one more year of teaching middle school and then he will retire. At that time, he wants to get a "retirement radio".

I have told him that whatever radio he eventually gets, if other than a Flex/Maestro, won't be as cool. Period.

Any ideas for other reasons, eg. "coolness", quality, etc., that I can relay to him to help him in this decision? I think the final price tag is the sticking point, but hey, you wanna play, you gotta pay. Life has always been like that.

See the attached photo of Mein Bruder.

Thanks!

Philip

K5CG

Setup your station and let him operate it. That's all anybody needs to get bitten by this bug.

Philip KA4KOE

That's what I was thinking. Get him hooked....

allenfr

I almost agree, BUT looking at that picture, especially the fine HQ-180 receiver, I wonder what it is your Brother likes about ham radio. If he is not comfortable with computers, it may not be a good mix. 
Let him operate yours. I have local hams, good friends, that hate my 6500. They like to rag chew, a little CW, bat the breeze. They don't want a Computer hooked up to anything in their shack. 
Careful, you don't want him uncomfortable with his radio. Heck, he may just up and take up golf instead !!

Ross - K9COX

I started using SDRs about 14 years ago. The first was a simple Softrock kit that cost me about $18. I ran many comparisons of it's receive capability to my Yaesu FT1000MP Mark V Field and the it was no better than the SDR. As a matter of fact the brick wall filtering of the little Softrock was superior. Since that time I have used many different SDR's and never looked back. Just let him play with the receiver.

Steve W6SDM

Actually, the price tag isn't that bad.  Compared to some of the other radios out there, the 6300 is a bargain based upon the capabilities. 

Of course there are boat anchors out there, are radios like the FT450 that have a low-end price tag, but it doesn't take anyone truly interested in ham radio long to grow out of those.

Philip KA4KOE

This is not a current shack photo.
He is comfortable with Ipads. He uses PC at work but those are necessary evil.

Philip KA4KOE

This will be his first brand new HF radio purchase.

Philip KA4KOE

Per the selling points of the Maestro, one doesn't need a PC. Since he is comfortable with an Ipad/touch screen interface, one would think this would work for him. I give my bro a lot of h***, but like any intelligent animal, he can be trained for a specific task and bent to my will.