On 23 Nov 2005 20:46:29 -0800, wrote:



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.

Wouldn't the power supply for a 100-watt tube rig, alone, eat up much
of your cost?

I've built a number of solid state kits recently, and one advantage to
them is a simple 12-volt supply or wall wart is typically all you
need.

bob
k5qwg



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

Good point about the power supply. But here's a wild idea: what about
using a space-charge tube lineup. Now that could operate off 12V
(altho 5 AMP)! I
suppose I could also get a fair amount of output operating a mini power
pentode
in space charge mode in class E. Nobody told me that class E was only
for semiconductors!

The Eternal Squire

wrote:

Good point about the power supply. But here's a wild idea: what about
using a space-charge tube lineup. Now that could operate off 12V
(altho 5 AMP)!


Back in the car radio days transistors were the output of choice even
when the rest of the tube lineup was space charge tubes. Can't get much
power with that scheme. Not impossible for a QRP rig though!

-Bill