I guess you dont play around with vintage vehicles Bill. Reproducing old
parts is a huge and profitable business if the quality is there. Some have
the blessings of the Big 3.
And it doesnt have to be that old either, anything from around 1971 and
earlier is fair game.
Id almost think a 4-1000A could be built at home by a very talented
industrial modelmaker, not toy models.
As far as the current CC 5el for 6M, that was PC designed and is pretty
decent considering the wide bandwidth it has to cover. A PC program cant do
much better on a 12' boom except optimize the F/R at the low end. Anybody
can run off a decent yagi for the low end CW/SSB operators.
Carl
KM1H
------ Original Message -----
From: "Bill VanAlstyne W5WVO" <w5wvo@cybermesa.net>
To: "Carl" <km1h@jeremy.mv.com>; "[Amps]" <amps@contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 1:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Amps] Why do tubes cost so much?
> This is an interesting thread in terms of manufacturing and marketing
> "philosophy" (if you will). When you're looking at a tube that has been
> around for a while, you're basically looking at a post-maturity product.
> That doesn't mean that the demand for the product is lessening, just that
> it has stopped increasing and the product has stopped evolving to more
> efficiently meet increasing demand. You reach a "good enough" balance
> point where you're going to be meeting current and future demand and are
> making your margin. Why try to change anything when all your R&D resources
> are 100% absorbed working on future products?
>
> Another case in point is the family of Cushcraft VHF yagi antennas, which
> have been marketed essentially untouched for decades. The designs go way
> back before computer modeling, and they basically suck (most notably the
> 12-foot 5-element 6m yagi). Many people, including myself, have redesigned
> them using computer modeling and vastly improved their performance.
> Cushcraft could obviously do the same thing. But do they? No. They're in
> the post-maturity phase of these products, and it is simply not worthwhile
> for them to put one more DIME into them for R&D.
>
> I think there may be some axioms at work here.
>
> Axiom #1:
> You can make more money selling something new than selling something old.
>
> Axiom #2:
> If you make something old better with new technology, to the marketplace
> it's not something new, it's still something old. See Axiom #1.
>
> Axiom #3:
> If you ARE making money selling something old that really isn't very good,
> but it is absorbing zero dollars in engineering overhead, just keep
> selling it, and don't put another DIME into it to make it better. See
> Axiom #2.
>
> Bill W5WVO
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Carl" <km1h@jeremy.mv.com>
> Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 13:04
> To: "Jim Tonne" <tonne@comcast.net>; <amps@contesting.com>
> Subject: Re: [Amps] Why do tubes cost so much?
>
>> I read somewhere (years ago so dont quote me) that tubes with extremely
>> close grids such as the 3CX800 and 1500 have yields around 20%. You would
>> think that after all these years companies would have better technology
>> available to assemble.
>>
>> Setup times should be controlled also, I just suspect that Eimac doesnt
>> care
>> since they still have the bulk of the market that will pay whatever it
>> costs.
>>
>> Carl
>> KM1H
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Jim Tonne" <tonne@comcast.net>
>> To: "Frederick Mott" <fredmott@zoominternet.net>; <dezrat1242@yahoo.com>;
>> <amps@contesting.com>
>> Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2010 9:40 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Amps] Why do tubes cost so much?
>>
>>
>>>
>>> I think that Bill and Fred have summarized things
>>> nicely.
>>>
>>> But I also suspect that the "tiny" tubes like a 6BA6
>>> are assembled in a relatively (if not entirely) automated
>>> operation. And I chose the 6BA6 because of how the
>>> first grid is formed, with that nonuniform winding.
>>>
>>> The "big" tubes - those with 100 kW or more of plate
>>> dissipation - offer the same challenges that the 1000
>>> watt tubes do but are simply scaled up and are
>>> larger in every respect and so probably relatively
>>> easier to build. The cost of materials in those huge
>>> tubes is probably significant. So is warranty cost.
>>>
>>> - JimT W4ENE
>>>
>>>
>>>> I have often wondered why big tubes cost so much.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Amps mailing list
>>> Amps@contesting.com
>>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/amps
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/amps
>>
>>
>
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