this just in from a drake group:


Greetings all-

Despite the notice on some websites, a call just now to RL Drake was
met with "no decision has been made." There was also no news of any
new model in addition to, or to replace, the highly respected R8B.

What does this mean....who knows? I guess we just "stay tuned, eh?"

This I just heard first hand, but like I said: "who knows?" I don't
know if they would tell us now anyway or not. What are your thoughts?

Briggs, ab2nj

I read a post on a Yahoo! group (can't remember which one) last year
sometime in which a person stated that Drake was going to pull the R8B
after the E1 came to market.

In that regard, I found it amusing that Universal "discontinued" the
R8B on the same day they posted a price and a specific ETA for the E1.

mike0219116 wrote:
I read a post on a Yahoo! group (can't remember which one) last year
sometime in which a person stated that Drake was going to pull the
R8B
after the E1 came to market.

In that regard, I found it amusing that Universal "discontinued" the
R8B on the same day they posted a price and a specific ETA for the
E1.

I wonder what what would rationalize this. In other words, what would
the launch of the E1 have to do with the R8B? I guess it would make
some sense to pull the R8B when the E1 is launched IF Drake were going
to be selling the E1. However, I've never seen any indication on
Drake's website that it will sell or even service the E1. In fact,
aside from a couple of extremely vague comments here and there, I've
not been able to figure out exactly what Drake has to do with the E1,
period.

Either Drake hasn't really had that much to do with the E1, or it's
keeping quiet about the precise nature and extent of its involvement.

Neither of these scenarios give me a good feeling about the E1.

Steve

And how much money do those E1's sell for vis a vis Drake R8B's? About a
year ago,I read somewhere those Satelit 800 radios aren't as good as
they are cracked up to be.How about some History of why some radios are
"copies" of Drake Radios?
cuhulin

Not sure I understand which radios are copies of Drakes....

I've heard that about the quality many of the later Satellit radios.
The Grundig name to me is associated with mellow sounding luggable
radios having lots of controls and several analog dials. As I remember
the later digital models always seemed to always have some sort of
issue with either audio quality, the synch detector or memory controls
that took some of the edge from a premium priced receiver. The last
one I played with was the Satellit 700 and found it completely
un-intuitve to use. I gave up waiting for it's successor because
Grundig USA seemed to lurch from one postponment to another.

I understand the Chinese badged version of the latest Satellit can be
had for $300.00 - is that possible? I have no idea what the Satellit
badged version sells for.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Not sure I understand which radios are copies of Drakes....

I've heard that about the quality many of the later Satellit radios.
The Grundig name to me is associated with mellow sounding luggable
radios having lots of controls and several analog dials. As I
remember
the later digital models always seemed to always have some sort of
issue with either audio quality, the synch detector or memory
controls
that took some of the edge from a premium priced receiver. The last
one I played with was the Satellit 700 and found it completely
un-intuitve to use. I gave up waiting for it's successor because
Grundig USA seemed to lurch from one postponment to another.

I understand the Chinese badged version of the latest Satellit can
be
had for $300.00 - is that possible? I have no idea what the
Satellit
badged version sells for.

$449 (+S/H) from Universal, or a reconditioned one
(courtesy of Drake) for $399 from Universal. What
Lextronics (which became Eton, I believe) did was
to go to Drake, purchase the rights to use the guts
of the Drake SW8 in the Satellit 800, then Lextronics
did some work to add in FM BCB, their own audio,
and a few other tweaks. Then Lextronics licensed
Tecsun to build them. That's the (extremely) short
summary of how the Sat 800 came to be.

As I like to put it, where the radio works, you can
thank Drake, and where it doesn't you can thank
Lextronics/Eton. The SW8 is a nice portatop, and
while the Sat 800 has nicer sound, the SW8 had
some intangibles with it to make it more useful
(solid construction vs. Chinese QA/QC problems,
and more birdies in the Sat 800 than in the SW8,
to name two). However, the SW8 was a couple
hundred dollars more than the Sat 800, and if you
got a good model or a reconditioned one, it was
(and is still) a good value.

--Mike L.

Thanks for the background on where the Sat 800 came from and how it
relates to the SW8. If the R8B is really being killed, it doesn't
leave much in the way of interesting radios for them to sell. Cable and
other equipment.

Any idea why Drake is so quiet about it?

Steve

wrote in message
oups.com...
Any idea why Drake is so quiet about it?

It's been in Passport for several years now, so I
don't think they're being quiet about their work
with the S800.

--Mike L.

wrote in message
ups.com...

Michael Lawson wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
Any idea why Drake is so quiet about it?

It's been in Passport for several years now, so I
don't think they're being quiet about their work
with the S800.

--Mike L.

I know...they repair S800s and for a time you could order 800s
directly
off the Drake site. What's odd is that they're nopt doing anything
comparable for the E1. There's at most a passing mention of the E1
on
the Drake site. Why the disparity, I wonder?

Probably due to the contract.

--Mike L.