Bob John wrote:
Is Tarheel pricing their products out of the market? I had consideration
purchasing a little Tarheel II during our local Hamfest last weekend in
Aurora, IL. The dealer informed me the price had once again gone up and they
are now $289.99.

Seems a reasonable price for a retail thing. Someone has to buy the
parts, someone has to pay someone to assemble it, someone has to store
it in a warehouse, someone has to sit in a store to sell it, etc.
All those steps add up.

When I worked in product design, we used to figure that retail selling
price (w/o discounts) would be 5-10 times the raw parts (Bill of
Materials, BOM) cost.

So, based on that, the parts cost for that antenna would be somewhere
between $25-50. Considering that most manufacturers avoid buying their
parts surplus (unless it's for a one-off), the motor alone is going
account for a significant fraction of that (unless they buy motors by
the pallet load, and even then, that might make them 30% cheaper, at best).

Then they have to buy finger stock, coils or wire to wind them, tubing
of various sizes, etc. Then, have pieces machined.

Add to this amount the sales tax,

Sales tax is something you can take up with your elected officials.
They have to get revenue somewhere to pave streets, run schools, pay
firemen, operate libraries, etc. Sales tax is a easy way for them to
collect it.

auto-controller and mount
and you are way over $600.00. This is more then I paid for my FT-100D, which
I purchased new.

At this point in time, the Hustler antenna is working fine
and I don't have to worry about theft.

Bob, AA8X