[TenTec] Tennessee Dreamin'

[Ron Notarius]

Wasn't the Scout in the $500 price class?  (I guess $800 would have included
ALL of the band modules... and PS and mike and more... but I digress)

Nor would I say it "flopped" as it was around for a good many years.  But
every rig... and this will apply even to the Orion and the IC7800 and so
forth... has a life span; at some point, technology will have progressed to
the point where updating or replacing a radio outright makes more economic
sense than continuing an older product line.  (Now, how long that lifespan
can be, that's a whole 'nother can of worms...)

The Century 21 was an interesting radio.  It might have sold better if it
had not been a CW only rig... and that's not a knock on the rig, just a
perception of the ham market of the time.  I always liked the C21, and the
C22 that followed it, for their simplicity of design and effectiveness for
what you could do with them.  As I recall, the lack of WARC bands brought
the C21 to it's end of life, and somehow, the C22 just didn't seem to pick
up well from there.  Why?  For a whole host of market reasons, but I don't
know them well enough to digress into that.

The Heath single banders, as I recall, were originally meant to be used as
mobile rigs.  They served a nice niche in their day (1960's into the very
early '70's -- I think) but were not as cost effective as "upgrading" to an
HW-100 5 band rig if you needed all 5 HF bands at the time.

I strongly suspect that the Argonaut V could possibly serve as a nice mobile
rig... if only it were 100 W out.  If I were asked by the gang in Tennessee
for my opinion, I'd suggest doing just that -- and coming up with some sort
of remote-control head, so that you could put the rig in the trunk and just
keep the controller up front with you.  But since I doubt you could do all
this for under $1K in today's market, I don't expect to see this.  But it
would be nice... and a lot more practical, both to use and to sell, than a
single-band/single-mode rig.

"That's my opinion.  I could be wrong."

73, ron wn3vaw

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rob Atkinson, K5UJ" <k5uj at hotmail.com>
To: <tentec at contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, August 02, 2004 6:53 PM
Subject: [TenTec] Tennessee Dreamin'


> Ten Tec did in effect make a single band cw rig.  it was also a single
band
> phone rig, and a mobile rig.  It was called the Scout.  Small transceiver,
> 50 watts, you get one and the module for the band you desire and
> kaboom...single band rig.  Mount it under the dashboard or on a table at
> home.
>
> It sold for around 800 bucks (or less, but in that general price area).
It
> evidently flopped because they don't make it anymore.
>
> Abt 25 yrs ago, TT also made a cw only xceiver.  Century 21.  I don't
> believe it went over all that well either.
>
> Heathkit made single band SSB transceiver kits once.  They were okay for
> their time.  Majority of hams don't want to shell out a lot of money for a
> rig that will work on only one band, and a single band rig is almost as
> expensive to make as a multiband rig.  Once again the market rules.
> Therefore, don't hold ur breath.
>
> Rob/K5UJ
>
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