RadioBanter - View Single Post - Unwritten policy and the intent of the average amateur ...

Dave Heil · January 30th 07, 05:30 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.policy

wrote:

But you didn't see computers, did you?

Once upon a time, RS was fairly big player in the consumer computer
market. But then they found it was too competitive a market, and they
could not compete with computer stores like CompUSA, MicroCenter,
etc. Now RS sells cables, adapters, disks, etc., but not computers.

RadShack stuff is simply way overpriced. I can buy cables and adapters
for much cheaper at Staples or Circuit City. I happened to stop at one
of our area Radio Shack stores two days ago to grab some chassis mount
female F connectors for a receiving antenna transformer housing I'm
building. I could have bought five or six of the things at even Lowe's
for the same price that RadShack sells two units. I notice a 20 pack of
DVD's for $7.99 Staples has a 25 pack for $3.99.

The economy of scale situation in ham radio today is mail order/
internet sales, plus hamfest/conventions. because they're the most
competitive for most things. Some manufacturers sell don't sell
through dealers at all - Ten Tec and Elecraft are two examples.

Exactly. I think Elecraft has always done so. Ten-Tec made the move a
decade or so back and it hasn't hurt the company a bit.

In the bad old days, there were "radio parts stores" here in the
Philadelphia area. Plus we had mail order to Allied, Newark and
Lafayette. Today the parts stores are gone but the mail order is
bigger than ever: Allied and Newark are still around, plus Mouser and
Digi-Key.

Cincy used to have Allied, Lafayette and Olson stores along with area
distributors. Ham gear was sold at an appliance store, Steinberg's
until the end of 1968. The city also had Coston's, a dealer in amateur
radio gear. Queen City Electronics sold ham gear exclusively until
upstart R&L, a discounter in Hamilton became so lare that it put Queen
City under.

btw, Digi-Key got its name because it started out as a tiny mailorder
business about 1968. They sold RTL logic chips to hams for Morse Code
keyers. QST, APril 1968. Then they added some popular transistors, and
sockets, and resistors....and the rest is history.

The company has never forgotten its roots either. There are no minimum
quantities and no minimum order.

The way to "sell" ham radio is simply to make it more visible to the
general public. The biggest barrier to that, IMHO, is anti-antenna
restrictions that are more common and more onerous every year.

You're right about the selling. In these parts, the antenna
restrictions are few and far between. When N8NN and I have done our
two-man FD efforts, we always manage to get a blurb about our operation
and Field Day in the local paper. We stress that the public is invited.
Our county ARES group does the same and holds its FD at a county park.

How many of us first became aware of the existence of local amateurs
by seeing their antennas?

I suppose that happens often. I actually heard a local ham on the air
before I noticed an antenna.

Dave K8MN