Ray, I followed you in agreement, right up to the last bullet.
It wasn't the "plenty of hams" willing to pay the price but rather Uncle Sam
that put that radio on the map.
Sam bought tens of thousands of S-Lines and KWM-2s.
I had two brand new KWM-2A's in 1973 and they were OK in CW.
Part of the deal was, I had to wear olive drab clothes every day.
The only real problem I had was, since they only covered a couple hundred
kHz per band, it was a bit inconvenient for contests. When you reached the
end of the band, it wasn't the end of the ham band, so you had to switch up
one band and crank the VFO all the way back down, so that you could continue
scanning the band in the same direction you were previously scanning.
Ten-Tec is already selling receivers to the military.
I don't know if they have sold any transceivers to them.
73 - Rick, DJ0IP
(Nr. Frankfurt am Main)
-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of
Rsoifer@aol.com
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2014 5:22 PM
To: tentec@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TenTec] How much for an Orion III?
Yes, Bry, and most hams of 1959 were busy supporting those families, or
going to school or college, and didn't have time to get on the air much.
Still, Collins sold many thousands of KWM-2s and S/Lines.
Though there were many things wrong with them (e.g. the KWM-2 on CW), they
were ground-breaking products for their time and their quality was second to
none. My KWM-2, purchased in 1962, still works, as does my S/Line stuff.
My point is that if the Orion III is truly the best performing radio on the
market, for contesting and DXing, then Ten-Tec need not worry too much about
building it to a price point. There are plenty of serious hams out there
who are able and willing to pay a fair price for the best. That was true
in 1959 and it is today. Conversely, if it isn't the best, then don't
bring it out.
73 Ray W2RS
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