"running dogg" wrote in message
...
wrote:

The more I think about it, the more concerned I am about the
reference
to the "limited availability" of the R8B on Drake's website. I
really
hope this isn't the beginning of the end of Drake receivers. That
would
really be depressing.

Drake hasn't brought out a new model in quite some time. I doubt
that
things are going well for the company. In fact, sales of all
tabletops
have been going down while sales of cheap Chinese portables have
been
going up. Passport said in their 2005 edition that the Sat 800
(which is
based on the Drake SW8 but made by Tecsun) will be discontinued
shortly.
AOR no longer sells tabletops in the US or indeed anywhere else
except
the UK. Maybe the end of tabletop makers in the west (including
Japan)
will lead to Chinese makers filling the void-Degen for one is
seriously
talking about a high end receiver, which would probably be too
expensive
for its traditional domestic market. But it's possible that the DXer
market is at its saturation point and that demand for tabletops can
be
satisfied by all the used models already out there. I don't think
it's
the beginning of the end for shortwave radio in general-like I said
Degen and Tecsun seem to be doing well-but it may be the end of the
traditional DXer portion of SW.

I'd asked about the future of the Drake series to the
service manager at R.L. Drake when I sent my Sat 800
in for a tune-up. His response was that the R8B was
it, there would be no R9. Sounds like their satellite
business is doing well; they had landed a deal with
SBC recently, he told me.

Really, it simply sounds like the future of shortwave
radios from Drake is to do the designs and let someone
else build it. The service manager had told me that
after they'd signed the deal for the Sat 800, they'd
wanted to do one more run of the SW8, but they
couldn't.

--Mike L.