[TenTec] Shootout at OK Corral

[ac5e at comcast.net]

The Japanese "Big Three" all seem to be vigorously pursuing the VHF/UHF market with late offerings from all three brands. Of course, the actual source of those radios has been a matter of speculation, with assembly taking place in low wage countries such as South Korea, China, and Indonesia the most popular suspects. The HF market is another matter. 

Kenwood has announced at least one new HF rig, the TS480. Perhaps two, if the TS69 announced at Dayton turns out to be a different rig from the '480. I seriously doubt Vertex/Yaesu has abandoned the HF market - the current price down looks more like a warehouse clearance to make room for new product instead of a sellout. Icom has announced the IC7800, with a mockup at Dayton and production supposedly coming someday soon. Whether there are more HF rigs on the way is an open question. Certainly the pricing has gotten sufficently low to eat into profits.  

Two things will have a profound effect on the HF market. The first is exchange rates - this administration seems determined to put the dollar on a fair exchange basis with Asian currencies and that's going to mean sharply higher prices or a corresponding reduction in anything beyond basic functionality. 

The other is the percieved size of the Amateur Radio market. If our numbers stop growing the perception will be of a shrinking market that's not worth developing product for. My crystal ball is broken, so we shall have to wait to see what we shall see on that front. Perhaps the next generation of JA HF rigs will also be "Hecho in China." 

However, my wish list includes an HF rig between the Jupiter and Orion to compete with the 746 PRO or PROII or maybe PROIII, a "Jupiter Lite" with conventional controls for a 100 watt mobile rig, an update of the 253 automatic KW tuner, and a 100 watt allmode 6/2/70cm rig. 

Interesting times we live in - but history says any time will be interesting to the interested. 

73  Pete Allen  AC5E





> It's clear from the recent discussions on this reflector that we hams are 
> now in the brave new world of software-driven transceivers and there's no 
> turning back. In ten years, I suspect, there will be for sale few--if 
> any--analog rigs with DSP add-ons that are so plentiful today. That's both 
> good news and bad news.
> 
> The good news is that today's DSP chips can do stuff that couldn't be done 
> a mere three or four years ago by those analog rigs.
> 
> The bad news is that transceivers using these chips cannot be built on the 
> cheap. The chips are expensive, and even more expensive are the software 
> design teams that make them work.
> 
> More bad news: It looks as if the financial challenge of building and 
> marketing software-driven transceivers for hams has already resulted in 
> three casualties--Japan Radio, Kenwood and Yaesu. There is no sign that any 
> of these companies are able or willing to shoulder the heavy investment 
> required to bring capable mostly-DSP rigs to the U.S. ham market. That 
> leaves ICOM and Ten-Tec.
> 
> Now that Ten-Tec has entered the upper end of the U.S. ham market (which is 
> actually the lower end of the international transceiver market) with the 
> Orion, I hope it can come up with a product priced at about half of what 
> the Orion costs that can compete with the IC-746 PRO, which has a single 
> sophisticated 32-bit floating-point chip.
> 
>  From my vantage, the battle for dominance of the U.S. ham market is 
> rapidly coming down to just two gunslingers with cartridges left in their 
> belts--ICOM and Ten-Tec. I don't think Ten-Tec releases sales numbers; 
> ICOM, as I recall, had sales of $200+ million in 2002.
> 
> Above is all IMHO.
> 
> 73,
> John, W3ULS
> 
> 
> 
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