"SC Dxing" wrote in message
...

I have to disagree in a polite way. If the market was large, more
brick & mortar retailers would carry the higher end receivers. It's a
niche market at best. Even the Grundig G5, G6, 350 are only carried at
Radio Shack. Nothing above that.

Let's face it. Radio is ancient technology. People barely even buy
AM/FM radios these days. If they listen to radio at all it is in a car,
and then only because the car has no MP3 player connection. Any other
time/place everyone listens to an MP3 player.

Best Buy, Circuit City etc. sell "high tech" stuff. Computers, digital
audio, digital TVs, digital cameras. See a pattern here? Radio is not a
player in this market. People are spoiled by digital music - even FM
sounds bad to them. AM sounds terrible and SW is just a joke.

There is clearly still a world wide market for radios, but in the U. S. it
is all but over. The digital/HD/IBOC stuff was a last-ditch attempt to
modernize radio. It is failing because it is too late, not for any
technical reasons. No one is listening any longer.

I fully expect that in 10 years, commerical AM radio will be completely
gone. FM will have the local news/talk/weather/traffic (it already does
here) as well as some music hold outs - country, oldies and other formats
where the listener is less likely to have computers and MP3 players and
therefore still listens to radio. The car radio will transform into an amp
and speakers for the MP3 player.

In article t,
msg wrote:

SC Dxing wrote:

snip
They probably have to produce all shortwave
radios in mass factories in China because the cost of building an
American factory just to manufacture radios would be prohibitive in
cost.

The [Premium-Rx] mailing list is quite active and its participants
have a significant variety of domestically made quality receivers
both classic and contemporary. There seems to be sufficient markets
military, gov't., commercial and personal to support domestic
manufacture of high-end receivers.

I think some of the problem is parts availability. The discrete
semiconductor industry has been in a state of flux for years where
designs have been shifted around from company to company. I never seem
to be able to get a part from the same vendor. Support for
semiconductor parts is getting worse.

I haven't been a buyer of parts for radios but I expect it is pretty
hard for them as the market is much smaller than the general
semiconductor market.

It is expensive to have to keep re-qualifying parts for designs.
Sometimes you have to change your circuit design because no drop in
equivalent exists.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

Telamon wrote:

In article t,
msg wrote:


SC Dxing wrote:

snip

They probably have to produce all shortwave
radios in mass factories in China because the cost of building an
American factory just to manufacture radios would be prohibitive in
cost.

The [Premium-Rx] mailing list is quite active and its participants
have a significant variety of domestically made quality receivers
both classic and contemporary. There seems to be sufficient markets
military, gov't., commercial and personal to support domestic
manufacture of high-end receivers.


I think some of the problem is parts availability. The discrete
semiconductor industry has been in a state of flux for years where
designs have been shifted around from company to company. I never seem
to be able to get a part from the same vendor. Support for
semiconductor parts is getting worse.

I haven't been a buyer of parts for radios but I expect it is pretty
hard for them as the market is much smaller than the general
semiconductor market.

Indeed, and until you mention it I haven't given it much thought; I wonder
how WJ, CEI, etc. are handling this -- are they buying from Asia and
thus are we dependent on the East for our sigint in this sense?


It is expensive to have to keep re-qualifying parts for designs.
Sometimes you have to change your circuit design because no drop in
equivalent exists.

All the time People think I'm nuts for depending on good working
surplus pulls but it has worked for me (to preserve designs).

Michael