Steve wrote:
How about offering these as kits? Maybe even offering them
with or without tubes? If you're able to keep the cost low I
think you have a shot.

Steve


I dunno, a company called Heathkit tried that and went belly up.

Lazy senior

How about offering these as kits? Maybe even offering them
with or without tubes? If you're able to keep the cost low I
think you have a shot.

A few years ago, somebody (Ghostmoon?) offered kits to make an "All American
Five" five-tube AM radio. They were quite expensive, and the company did not
last.

Antique Electronic Supply (http://www.tubesandmore.com/ ) offers a few
tube-based kits for various things. You could try phoning them and ask what
sort of demand there is for that kind of thing in general.

I suppose you would be competing with existing solid-state kits. If you
Google around, you can find what's available and what it costs, etc.

Regards,

Phil Nelson

Lazy Senior wrote:
Gosh I must really bug you
Lazy Senior

I know for sure that this continuous BS is bugging ME
and probably a lot of other people too.

Drop it and let's go back to talking about BAs.

Ron

wrote:

All,

I've occasionally seen homebrew tube transceivers on Ebay that range
from really good to too gnarly looking to seem safe. I am thinking of
creating a line of clean-looking, attractive, rugged tube equipment for
casual or missionary use with a reasonable price/output performance
that is easy to repair and adjust, based on schematics and design
principles that have gone into the public domain.

Would there be an audience? Comments?

The Eternal Squire


I don't think there is an audience. Here's why I feel that way...

Anybody that wants the hassle of a 'homebrew' tube xcvr just for giggles
is well advised to just pick up a $50 HW-100 (or similar) on ebay. You
get a slippy dial drive, you get to re-address old problems that were
inherent in its original day, you get to fork over the sale price once
again for a good set of finals and a few other tubes.

I dealt with some missionaries in the 70s and the LAST thing they wanted
was a tube rig. Plug-n-play, never-fail solid-state are where that
market is. If you're in the Amazon backwaters of Brasil you don't want
temperamental stuff. You can't just check into an internet forum like
this and beg a few new tubes and they show up in the mail a week later.

As for home-based hams...there's a definite thrill of using a homebrew
rig but all that is lost when its somebody else's homebrew rig.

I'm a proud Galaxy V owner, nice rig, cheap enough, I've got enough
sweat equity into it to where I have an affinity for it. I can't
imagine anyone else liking it as much as I do.

-Bill

Lazy Senior wrote:
Steve wrote:

How about offering these as kits? Maybe even offering them
with or without tubes? If you're able to keep the cost low I
think you have a shot.

Steve


I dunno, a company called Heathkit tried that and went belly up.

Heathkit didn't go belly up because kits were not profitable;
Heathkit went out of business because their new owner had no
interest in a kit company, but rather wanted the assets of the
Zenith computer company.

Heath continues to this day making security devices, lamp fixtures,
and a number of other mundane products.

-Chuck

I think that Heathkit had to be put to sleep because the world had
changed and Heathkit slowly became irrelevant for many different
reasons, some of them permanent, some of them not.

If one keeps those reasons in mind while creating the business plan,
then the only thing left to do is to determine a competitive
price/performance point based on market research.

My thoughts:

1) Kits are not realistic except in upper end niche markets such as
Elecraft due to issues of customer support and liability.

2) I'm not thinking of making rigs capable of world-burning performance
for DX chasing or contesting. Most people are appliance operators,
sad to say and want to just hook up the rigt to power, antenna, and
antenna and go. What I have in mind are gear capable point to point
shortwave links, essentially cross-country rag chew, SSB for Generals
and above, with CW thrown in for the Tech+ and above.

3) What I can think I can offer in gear is stable operation in
abuse-proof enclosures at slightly higher power levels. Part of the
way I can do this is to use 21rst century materials and manufacturing
methods to implement mid-20th century mechanical requirements.

4) There are also a few natural advantages that tube gear has that
semiconductors do not: tube gear is less likely to break upon exposure
to dirty power, EMP, and bad SWR.

5) New tubes are still being made by Russia and China and this will
quite likely stay that way for the forseeable future. Purists might
turn thier nose up at using these tubes, but something workable could
be made out of them for a reasonable price.

7) Also, the price of US manufacturing, and labor are just too high for
anything other than creating a prototype. Basically I am creating a
very useful toy, but only a toy, and will most likely need to import
the manufacturing and labor.

8) I should only offer 80, 40, 30, 20, and 18 meters. I want to stay
as far away from 10 meters as I can, due to possible use of hacked gear
on 11 meters. I don't believe the audience for 160 is very large.

More thoughts?

The Eternal Squire

Ron in Radio Heaven wrote:
Lazy Senior wrote:

Gosh I must really bug you
Lazy Senior


I know for sure that this continuous BS is bugging ME
and probably a lot of other people too.

Drop it and let's go back to talking about BAs.

Ron

Beerbarrel, Uncle Pete, and Chuckee seem to have a grudge against me and
wont stop. Every post I do they want to humilate me. And I never back
from a fight....

If it bugs you - - ALL email clients have filters, use them and you wont
have to read this crap. I use the filters all the time for FA and FS ads
and also people I dont like to read. I havent filtered the above 3 jerks
- yet.

Lazy Senior

wrote:


More thoughts?

The Eternal Squire


One thing YOU must keep in mind - ALL HAMS ARE CHEAP -

It is a gene we all have. Even rich hams I know are cheap.

We go to to the local hamstore to demo equiptment (or at a hamfest) and
then go home and order on the internet to save money.

Lazy Senior

Oh, I LOVED the Galaxy V mark II. It was the rig I grew up on! When
my folks got divorced when I was in college they stored it in a garage
and it got rusted out completely. My second best choice is the Yaesu
FT-101E or EE, I had the E rig in my first marriage but I lost it in
the divorce and bankruptcy. I just got a Yaesu FT-101EE to reactivate
the communications part of the hobby. I am a builder, primarly, and
have been for decades.

I beg to differ regarding tube gear being tempermental. Badly designed
tube gear is certainly inferior to established solid state gear. But
well designed tube gear (Collins class and some military) is better
than most solid state gear. Success depends on a lot of factoris:
electronic design, mechanical engineering, manufacturing methods and
techniques, parts sources, pricing, and profit margin.

The FT-101, Galaxy, Drake, and Swan are not $100 pieces of gear on
EBay, they are more like $300 to $400 pretty consistencly. I think a
fully loaded multiband fresh boatanchor should sell quite nicely for
$199.95 it if offers compareable features. That would imply a
wholesale price of about $100.00. That would imply that parts, labor,
and other indirect costs should be somewhere between $50 to $80. I
think I can get from Russia or China a single sweep tube plus a handful
of smaller tubes for about $30. The rest would have to be chassis,
discretes, power, labor, shipping, and customs.

Now, if I market direct through the net rather than through a retailer,
I think I could go self sustaining after a few build-sales cycles.

If the people on this topic would be willing to be a focus group for
the fresh boat-anchor of thier dreams, I would be quite grateful.

The Eternal Squire

Oh yes.. this I know. What a ham wants is the most miles to the
galleon, just like a car. But what is quality to a ham? Clear
audio, no spurs, sharp passbands, and suppressed harmonics. Easy
repair and replacement by self too, right? Plus ruggedness.

Anything else?

The Eternal Squire