Yep... Who will pay for it?

The gizmo that Frank designed (16+ years ago) could be built for about
$25.00 (USD) buying the parts retail. I would suspect that, at that time, a
manufacturer going all out in building and selling these things could have
got all the parts for around $4.00 or so. With a redesign to take advantage
of today's DDS, DSP, SS, uControllers, etc., I would suspect that
manufacturer, buying in lots to build 5000 units, would probably pay about
$6.00 for the parts and perhaps another $8.00 in labor. That would put their
wholesale price to dealers at about $40.00 and retail price at about
$80-$100.

You'll pay that for a 1200 bps TNC!

But, actual prices aside, we hams need to start doing some innovative and
interesting things that private industry can pick up on and make a few
dollars. Want to get really bad news? Go to the FCC site and take a look at
what bands the size of, for example, our 70 cm band are selling for at
auction. Hams in the US are probably sitting on a couple of billion dollars
worth of bandwidth.

How long do you think it will be before some congress critter notices that
hams, (A) Ham a lot of valuable bandwidth, (B) Have not contributed very
much to the electronics or radio industries since the early 1950's, (C) Are
shrinking in numbers and spend most of their time acting just like CBer's,
and (D) Are basically a moot point when it comes to emergency
communications.

In other words, the people that really like ham radio will come up with the
money because it matters to them if it goes away.

And, BTW, there were the same arguments about money when we had a lot of
privately owned BBSs for computer users to call into.

Take Care & 73
--
From The Desk Of
Marty Albert, KC6UFM




"Dee Flint" wrote in message
...

There is nothing stopping the hams from changing it except for lack of
money. Too many people come up with these grandiose ideas and expect
somebody to fund it. Well it isn't going to happen. Many clubs are
struggling just to keep their repeaters funded and maintained.
Individuals face dilemmas of their own on how to allocate their financial
priorities.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE