[TenTec] Serious market overlooked by ham manufacturers

[ab9go at earthlink.net]

I wonder why Tecsun has not produced a radio for this band.  In other countries the 220 band is utilized by public services and I would bet that it would not take much to move their VHF rig to 220!

Randy AB9GO

-----Original Message-----
>From: "Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <gsm at mendelson.com>
>Sent: Aug 4, 2008 12:03 AM
>To: wn3vaw at verizon.net, Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment <tentec at contesting.com>
>Subject: Re: [TenTec] Serious market overlooked by ham manufacturers
>
>On Sun, Aug 03, 2008 at 05:29:45PM -0400, Ron Notarius W3WN wrote:
>> Now... if someone was to make the investment for a production run of, say,
>> 100,000 or so 222 MHz FM HT's for use in the North American market (and
>> anywhere else where amateurs have access to the 222 MHz band)... and it
>> would have to be a decent unit that could pass FCC/IC type acceptance, etc.,
>> let's not get bogged down in the details... and could afford to profitably
>> sell those units at, say, US$79 each (plus tax & s/h, natch)... do you think
>> the amateur radio market would buy enough of these radios to "boot strap"
>> interest in 222?  (Obviously, you'd have to encourage some repeaters to go
>> up in some areas... and other infracstructure and so on... again, I'm being
>> very general here)
>
>
>If you look back to our discussion where I proposed a basic 20m SSB rig,
>all of the arguments against it hold here too. As for construction costs,
>a 20m SSB rig, of "rag chew" quality can be retooled from a cheap CB,
>while a contest quality 222 rig can't. 
>
>If someone could make a 222 FM rig for $79, they would have long since
>done it for 2m, where they could sell a lot more. Here the FRS band
>is 446 mHz, and the radios sell all over the place, for example in Home
>Center and Office Depot. How many of them have found their way to the U.S.?
>
>Geoff.
>
>-- 
>Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
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