That's my takeaway. Or, there's some move afoot to simply make more money
now that they feel that they have a lock on the market, whether amateur or
military.
US Tower is a privately held company, now based in Lincoln, KS, but
formerly based in California. The CEO and presumptive owner is a fellow
named Bruce Kopitar. QRZ lists him as a ham in California with a current
Novice license with the callsign WB6UST.
In 1999, Bruce penned a letter that was posted on Towertalk (check the
archives!) where he stated:
"
First of all U S Tower is not and has not lost the emphasis on Amateur Radio
Towers. U S Tower is the largest Amateur tower manufacturer in the world and
we plan on holding that position forever. It is true that U S Tower has had
a large increase in commercial business and we hope it continues to grow. U
S Tower has increased is manufacturing space and staff dramatically to handle
the increase in business from both Amateur and commercial sales. U S Tower
would like to thank you for your support for the last 15 years. Amateur
Radio towers are how we got started and we are devoted to the Amateur
community.
Hopefully, this hasn't changed. If he wanted to stop selling amateur
towers, he could simply stop.
If this price increase extends to towers purchased with federal funds,
there could be an issue with such an increase, but the amateur market
has no protection.
Hoovers estimates that US Tower has gross sales of under $20M, so
they're not a very large corporation.
That said, 16 weeks lead time on a tower indicates a healthy
underlying business, If they're not seeing that lead time shrink,
shearing off a percentage of business by doubling prices might be a
strategy to reduce production demand.
Finally, after all of us complaining about US Tower, there's the
matter of HRO. How much of the increase is US Tower and how much is
HRO?
I'm going to call HRO tomorrow. And Tashjian. And Heights Towers. And
purchase something this month.
73,
Mickey Baker
N4MB
On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 6:26 PM, Kevin <kstover@ac0h.net> wrote:
> Chris,
>
> I used to do it for a living. I was certified to weld just about anything
> anywhere, except underwater.
>
> They are NOT a start up. They've had all the tooling and "machinery" for
> many years now. ALL of their crank ups are a variation of 5 or 6 20' tower
> sections whose jigs were built years ago. I could probably weld one in 10
> minutes, even with my poor eyesight and prosthetic leg.
>
> Press brakes, CNC Plasma tables, CNC lathes, welders, etc...don't need
> replacing very often, if ever, given proper maintenance. We had a WWII
> turret lathe that still put out very good parts, maybe not CNC quality but
> good enough.
>
> They're building towers not high performance engines or wrist watches.
>
> Kinda funny that Tashjian hasn't raised their prices by a factor of three.
> They're 20 miles apart and probably have quite a few of the same suppliers.
>
> They simply don't want to be in the amateur market any longer.
>
>
>
>
> On 1/2/2017 4:56 PM, EZ Rhino wrote:
>
>> Good points Jim.
>>
>> I may also add that a lot of us (including myself, at times) are
>> spoiled. We clickety click click on line, and two days later a product is
>> in our mailbox. We no longer realize how things are manufactured or the
>> time, energy and cost associated with producing a product.
>>
>> Metal fabrication isn't an inexpensive or easy business to be in. The
>> machinery needed to fabricate a tower is expensive, er, I mean, EXPENSIVE!
>> and HUGE! CNC plasma tables, press brakes, welding equipment, CNC benders,
>> jigs, fixturing tables, tooling, tooling, and more tooling, and qualified
>> experienced operators of this machinery, and don't forget a huge building
>> that can store all this stuff. Metal fab is a slow process, lots of labor,
>> and lots of trial and error to figure out how to make something that
>> functions correctly. Then you need to figure out the most economical way
>> to mass produce the product with the least labor as possible. It's not
>> easy.
>>
>> I am not excusing the price increases at UST, as they do sound out of
>> line. But I do think getting a new 50-foot crank up for $3k is a bargain!
>>
>> Also watch the used market, where you can get a real deal on some used
>> stuff. I watched the classifieds like a hawk for almost a year, finally
>> found a TriEx LM470 that was still horizontal, still partially crated,
>> never installed, and got it for a song.
>>
>> Chris
>> KF7P
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Jan 2, 2017, at 15:43 , jimlux wrote:
>>
>> On 1/2/17 11:38 AM, Jim Brown wrote:
>>
>>> Great response, Jim. BUT -- the increase noted by the original poster
>>> was that the increase was overnight!
>>>
>>> Several possible reasons for this. One is that business operations for
>>> the ham market are often supported by higher volume and higher margin
>>> operations for other markets. When those other markets fall apart, they
>>> no longer support the ham market, or contribute to economies of scale
>>> that allow lower prices.
>>>
>>> Another is corporate mergers, which can change business priorities,
>>> change where products are manufactured.
>>>
>>> But assuming corporate greed as the reason for all such price increases
>>> is unreasonable. It certainly can be, but there are many other reasons.
>>>
>>> yes, I agree.. usually it's a "it's not economic to sell at that price
>> any more, compared to other products". I was more commenting on the "back
>> in 85" comment.
>>
>> I know someone who is buying 50 tower trailers with 100+ ft towers on
>> them. That's a much better sale proposition than onsie, twosie sales to
>> individuals. Whether through distribution or not, the support costs tend
>> to be "per customer" not "per tower".
>>
>> As for the overnight x3... That's a "we don't really want to be in this
>> business" or "our cost structure radically changed" kind of increase.
>>
>> I've also seen that when you have a business founder of a family operated
>> business retires/sells out: the founder didn't have any debt service costs,
>> was willing to live out whatever margin there was. The new owner had to
>> get a loan to buy the business and actually has to pay employees a wage and
>> benefits - all of a sudden instead of "my wife does the assembly and we're
>> on the same insurance" it's "I've got to pay a reasonable wage and provide
>> vacation, insurance, etc.", I've got to pay rent and storage costs, I've
>> got to pay for the "cost of money".
>>
>> A similar phenomenon occurs when a partner retires/dies/leaves and the
>> remaining partners have to buy them out.
>>
>> Or, it's just - we don't want to leave existing customers totally in the
>> lurch, but we can't subsidize them either - we'll be responsible and at
>> least make parts available, but at cost that is basically "fabricate from
>> scratch individually"
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> TowerTalk mailing list
>> TowerTalk@contesting.com
>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> TowerTalk mailing list
>> TowerTalk@contesting.com
>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>>
>>
> --
> R. Kevin Stover
> AC0H
> ARRL
> FISTS #11993
> SKCC #215
> NAQCC #3441
>
>
> ---
> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
> https://www.avast.com/antivirus
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> TowerTalk mailing list
> TowerTalk@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|