Hi Rob,
You made some very good points concerning the "target audiences" for the
IC-7800.
I believe that the street price will be in the $7K ~ 8K range; a little rich
for Joe Ham, but peanuts for the alphabet-soup agencies who normally buy
from the likes of Rockwell-Collins, R&S, Racal/Thales, Harris etc. I am sure
that GCHQ, NATO and their brethren are looking to replace their venerable
IC-781's. It is probably true that Icom's bread and butter lies in the
mil/gov and commercial sectors.
Several matters bear pointing out here:
1. There is a big international marketplace out there. North America is not
the only land-mass on the planet.
2. Hams are not the only people in that wide world who buy and use HF radio
equipment. There are all kinds of military, governmental and commercial
entities to whom a first-class COTS radio represents an excellent,
cost-effective alternative to full mil-spec.
3. These entities do not need to concern themselves too much about
type-approval. In many cases, they either are, or control, their national
radio regulatory agency. When the defence procurement service, the radio
regulatory service and the ministry of finance are all playing on the same
team, things can go remarkably smoothly.
4. As its transmitter and main receiver are restricted by design to
amateur-band coverage only, the Orion is by definition locked out of these
potentially highly lucrative markets which, as you intimated, will more than
pick up the slack once amateur demand begins to taper off. This is
regrettable.
Cheers for now, 73,
Adam VA7OJ/AB4OJ
-----Original Message-----
From: tentec-bounces@contesting.com
[mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com]On Behalf Of Rob Atkinson, K5UJ
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 07:12
To: tentec@contesting.com
Cc: k5uj@hotmail.com
Subject: [TenTec] 7800 purchases (was Orion in contests)
<<<I was at the Fort Wayne, IN Hamfest last wk end. Talked to Icom, the 7800
will be more like $10,000?
AND the first run is spoken for. Go Figure...
Lee>>>
I also doubted there would be very many 7800s sold at that price but--
Quick story to give some insight into this: I was at a vendor last summer
and the talk turned to the 7800. Now, this is someone who has been in the
business side of ham radio for many years and knows a few things about the
market I'd never realize. He asked me to guess how many 7800s Icom would
sell to hams:
Me: World wide?
Vendor: Yeah.
Me: (thinking) Umm, oh, at $10K, probably 300.
Vendor: Ha, try more like three thousand.
He went on to explain that there are a lot of guys with lots of money for
this hobby--many more than I would have guessed.
Also, a couple of other points: Firstly, you all don't really think Icom is
making the 7800 just for hams do you? I have been told when their last
super rig, the one with the CRT (781?) came out, they sold around a thousand
to NATO. Those are old rigs now; the 7800 (or it's mil spec cousin) is
supposedly being built to be sold to government users as a replacement.
This is heresay--I do not have any facts to support this, however it seems
in some way plausable since the cost of designing, building and selling a
really high end product can't be borne by the ham market alone. Collins
owners laugh when people act as if the S Line was built for hams. Secondly,
the civilian ham product price will probably drop after a few thousand are
sold around the world to goverments.
Rob Atkinson
K5UJ
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