This is where TT may be on the right track with the Rebel/Patriot concept (and
why these seem to be appealing to the "Maker Faire" crowd.) My experience has
been that if you try to talk to a young technically-oriented person about
being able to communicate with someone on the other side of the country or
the other side of the world via radio their eyes glaze over. But bring up the
idea of doing that with a radio that they built (or built an interface for or
wrote code for) and watch the light bulbs go on.
I think that was a lot of the appeal of Heathkit et al - not that their
products were always cheaper and/or technically superior but that there was a
sense of accomplishment in being able to successfully build a piece of
equipment. This can be seen in the flourishing current QRP kit "cottage
industries." I hope that TT is at least considering keeping its T-Kit
division alive as well as offering less expensive rigs. If TT can build a
customer base among the "Maker Faire" crowd that can go a long way toward the
future success of the company: i.e. with the idea at least some of the young
customers buying Rebels and T-Kits in the near term will in the future be
customers for the Omni X, "Triple Eagle", Orion IV, or whatever the
TT "flagship" rig is when that time comes.
Just my $0.02 worth....
73, Al
On Fri May 23 2014 5:15:08 am Brian Carling wrote:
> Jim is right on this though. With these "700,000" new hams, you can bet
> most will never operate HF and even fewer will experience the utter joy of
> CW. this is why I'm so delighted when I hear about groups of guys that are
> learning together and experiencing CW or homebrewing etc. I had a slow CW
> QSO the other day with a class that was learning CW. First with a student
> and then with his teacher. It was so cool.
>
> Best regards - Bry Carling, AF4K
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