Mike
Thanks for the update. On this Thanksgiving Day I am appreciative for the
many hours of pleasure the Ten Tec products have given me in my off hours. I
have had two Eagles in my past, and still hold on to my Omni VII. While I
would be tempted to buy another Eagle, I believe there is a ready product in
your inventory that without modification can produce some cash flow; that is
the Ten Tec Argonaut VI. It is a delightful qrp rig, within the cash means of
most hams' discretionary budget without too much xyl objections. I would send
you the money today for a reserved pre-order.
Mike, N8TTR
> On Nov 21, 2016, at 1:36 PM, Mike Dishop via TenTec <tentec@contesting.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> Greetings Friends and Fellow Ten Tec Enthusiasts,
>
> Iwanted to update you on what is happening in Sevierville. The
> SmokeyMountains are literally fogged in with smoke in some places as
> Tennessee hasmany wild fires burning. I was there two weeks ago and have
> never experiencedanything like it. Driving down Jellico Mountain on I75 it
> became literally IFRconditions with near zero visibility from the smoke.
> Assome of you know Ten Tec has been occupying office condominium space behind
> thesite of the former factory were now a Wal-Mart Express is sitting.
> Thissite is not appropriate for our needs. Starting last week, weare moving
> out of this location into a more industrial friendly space.Unfortunately this
> location is not zoned for commercial walk in traffic, so thedays of someone
> showing up at the factory door unfortunately have come toan end. After an
> entire year of searching for any possible opportunity tomove, this is all we
> have been able to come up with. Commercial realestate is completely out of
> control in Sevierville county because of thetourist industry, and unless we
> have about a half million dollars toinvest in the factory location you can
> just forget about it. Ten Tec is"too small" to receive any incentive, tax
> breaks or help from the localso called "Economic Development" office. My
> opinion is thatthe State and local government of Tennessee is about as
> economically unfriendlyto a small business or start up business as is
> possible. For example, inother counties in TN the standard is to create 10
> new jobs to get anyincentive. Sevier County arbitrarily requires 25 jobs. By
> mycalculations, 25 jobs would be around a million dollar pay roll if the
> jobsaveraged 15 dollars an hour to the employee with a 25% more overhead to
> theemployer. Any business having that kind of payroll better have about
> 10million in gross receipts which would put it at DOUBLE the IRS definition
> of asmall business and QUADRUPLE the IRS definition of a microbusiness, so it
> isobvious that the economic development offices do not have any
> mandatewhatsoever to support or help ANY small business reason the scale of
> anindividual person's finances. The fact that Ten Tec must havecontributed
> millions of tax dollars to the local economy over the last 50 yearsmeans
> nothing. In many states, these economic development offices arepartially
> funded by the local Chamber of Commerce. It is my opinion theseoffices
> function as intelligence gathering units to forewarn their members ofany
> possible competitor entering their area. If small business is truly
> theeconomic growth engine of the United States it is apparent to me why we
> havegrowth problems if we depend on these organizations to help us as
> individuals.It seems ironic that the company named TEN TEC for Tennessee
> Technologies can'tget any assistance at all in Tennessee considering the
> state's advertising oftheir "Tennessee Technology Initiative". If you are
> wondering why I wrote all thisabove it is to head off the endless string of
> expert recommendation that Icontact TVA and the local economic development.
> I’ve done it and nobody is going to help Ten Tec in the State of Tennessee.
> Toget back on track, I stated above we are moving the remainder of this
> month.You all know what that means. Service will be slow this month.
> Robertdecided not to have you send in radios this month so we wouldn't have
> to movethem. There is no cause for alarm or speculation. Service
> willcontinue just as soon as we are moved. I hear and read all kinds of
> gossip andcomplaints and this and that about our service, and none of it even
> close toaccurate. We have serviced hundreds of radios this year and have a
> bunch ofhappy customers. You will see in the reflector some guy complaining
> orsaying he is worried and then five people saying everything was fine.
> I'mso sick of it. Really it is so frustrating, especially when some of
> youcall or write me up in Ohio about your twenty year old radio. I can'thelp
> you. I'm not in Tennessee. The people there run things and do their
> jobessentially under Boyd's supervision. I don't want to sound condescending
> oraloof or unreasonable or unfriendly but please see this from my
> perspective.There are thousands of you and one of me. I am responsible to
> run thiscompany and pay the people who work here whose families depend on me.
> Iam an electrical engineer and my time needs to be spent getting the
> newproducts developed and out the door, not with a dial string for your old
> thingthat I neither sold you or received any benefit of selling to you.
> Canyou directly call the president of Icom? Does Eric answer the
> telephonewhen you call Elecraft? It is just not possible for me to answer
> everyemail and every telephone call about service issues. If you call me
> atDishtronix and leave a message asking me to call you about your Ten Tec I'm
> notreturning your call. If I answer I'm going to tell you we have put up
> theprocedure that you email service@tentec.com. Yes, I have a telephone
> atTen Tec and no, you can’t have it. We are short staffed because we do
> nothave sales volume at this time to support a large overhead. This
> way,Robert can go through all of the email and respond at one time in the
> morning,then spend the rest of the day shipping radios and parts orders
> without beinginterrupted. He is there three days a week, so you don't get
> answers onMonday or Friday. Sure, I know some of you don't like it. There is
> no needto tell me about it. I don't like it either, but until we start having
> alot more cash flow that is the way it has going to have to be. For those
> thatcomplain about how long it is taking, please understand this is a
> milliondollar endeavor and money like that just doesn’t grow on trees, at
> least forme. Of course any of you wealthy gentlemen looking for a good cause
> to donatesome money too - I would love to have the cash on hand to turn
> thingsaround tomorrow. Until then I’ll be working 16 hours a day seven days a
> weekwith no days off and scrimp and save and spend carefully and build up
> slowlyjust like every other hard working guy has to do.
> WhatI am going to try to do next is set up sort of an email hotline for
> critical caseswith Bob if he will do it. I just thought of this and have to
> talk to him aboutthis.
> OK,enough about that. Let’s get on to some better stuff. Many of youknow
> that under RFC and RKR Ten Tec quit doing their PCB assembly inhouse. Those
> of you who have known me over the decades at Dishtronix knowmy shop suffered
> heating issues that made it tough for the machinery to run inthe end of
> January to February artic blasts. Well, I have a new and verynice double
> insulated, heated and cooled free span metal building where I'vemoved my PCB
> assembly operation and this is something I'm very excitedabout. The building
> has a metal skin totally covering the inside withgood overhead fluorescent
> lighting and conduit encased electrical outletsevery 12 feet around the
> perimeter. I have retired the older ContactSystems placement machines in
> favor of newer MYDATA (Micronics Sweden)placement machines. I installed the
> first MY9 machine this last June and havebeen using it to build boards for
> the RX340 commercial orders we have beenfulfilling. Ten Tec did have a MY9
> when they were building boards inhouse. The MYDATA machines are the choice
> for high mix medium volumeproduction, especially when equipped with the
> Agilis quick change feedersystem. Feeders usually cost more than the machines
> in this business, and I'vebeen growing my collection all year. I am about a
> third of the way tohaving the collection of feeders I would like to have.
> Earlier this month I gotlucky and was able to purchase the bar code software
> which will allow me toload and unload components from the machine by just
> scanning with the barcodereader, and it is done offline. It will help with
> inventory control andcomponent management which is a real nightmare
> considering Ten Tec has over7000 different line items.
> TheMY9 machine has a capability to hold up to 96 different components and has
> asingle mounting head. As I write this, an air ride big rig is getting
> closerand closer to Ohio hauling a MY19 machine in from San Francisco which
> can hold anadditional 160 different components (total 256 8 mm tapes) and has
> 8 mountingheads! Hopefully this machine will be brought online successfully
> and notbe damaged or in bad shape as I've bought it sight unseen. I've
> alsomoved the 8 zone, lead free capable, pin chain conveyor equipped
> ElectrovertBravo 8105 oven to the new building last weekend. This gives us
> thecapability to process double sided surface mount and the ability to
> reliablyprocess BGA chips. I've also purchased this summer but not yet
> installedan X ray machine to do 100% inspection of the BGA reflow
> solderingprocess. With the existing equipment (stencil printers, board
> washers,etc.) this will give us what I believe is the most well equipped and
> modern PCBmanufacturing of any amateur radio manufacturer in North America.
> Ibelieve the other guys outsource their board assembly. It may be thesmart
> thing to do, but I personally prefer to buy and house my own componentsin
> house and to have total control over my assembly process. I find itrequires
> more time to outsource and get constant bids for things like this thanto just
> own the equipment and do it myself. I think you get a better product atless
> cost. Of course the best reason in my opinion for doing it all in house isI
> can do as small of a production run as I want, IF I am willing to spend
> thetime to set up and do it. Hence the decision for the quick change
> capability ofthe MYDATA system. So, all in all what this means is the
> Phoenix isrising. I am rebuilding Ten Tec and preparing to do some serious
> manufacturing,which brings me to my next point.
> Mostof you know we have been bogged down and overwhelmed with the commercial
> sideof our business this last year since I officially assumed the helm in
> January.With trying to replenish the hard to get / long lead time /
> lasttime buy / obsolete parts, rebuild the PCB assembly operations,
> moving,and so on we just haven't had the horsepower to build any
> amateurtransceivers. Well, the good news is we have caught up on our
> commercialcontracts. Be glad we did this. You know all the stuff I wrote
> aboutabove? The commercial contracts paid for that. Without this TEN TEC
> wouldnot exist right now. We are at a very important cross roads right now.
> What do we do next?
>
> Someof you know we are developing new products. Those are still off on
> thehorizon. What I need to know is how many of you would purchase Eagles
> ifthey were available? I'd like to do a run of 100 of them next. It is
> agreat radio. I like mine every bit as well as my Orion II. The DSPfunction
> is superb.
> Wehave to talk a little bit about price. When the Eagle was launched it wasa
> $2100 radio with no accessories. You all know the story of the blow outsales
> and the liquidation as the previous owners sold everything that wasn'tnailed
> down on their way out. Some of you got fully loaded radios for$1299 or
> whatever. You know they didn't even cover their assembly cost onthat, right?
> Some of you got real bargains. Of course only the last 35radios or something
> were sold at that price but you get the point. Youwill never see a price
> like that again. If I have to sell and Eagle atthat I will close and lock
> the doors and be done with it. A strip modelneeds to sell at 1699 at least.
> The more you are willing to pay for aradio the faster the new radios can come
> out. We want to build radios andsell them so we can keep the production team
> in place so we can meet the demandwhen the new radios come out. Everything we
> do tomorrow depends on how much yousupport us today.
> I'mcertain some of you have heard that I and two partners acquired Alpha and
> thatI've been officially at the Helm since August. It is a separate
> companyfrom Dishtronix / TEN TEC. Of course I will be building the
> circuitboards for those products as well. I'm after something business
> peoplecall economy of scale, essentially having enough product flow through
> the doorsto totally occupy the machines and infrastructure. I'll be making
> apost on that reflector as well to update those customers also.
> Bythe way, we do have RX340s available to build on short notice now.
> Letme close by wishing you all a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving holiday, one of
> myfavorites and of course the reason I see my dentist in November for my
> prefeast tune up. The Sevierville team and I appreciate your support for
> TenTec, where we believe we are once again Making America Great - One Radioat
> a Time.
> VY73 DE MIKE N8WFF
>
>
>
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