[TenTec] Best of Luck de W4TJE

[k6jek]

It sure feels like you're right about the demographics judging by the guys I talk to on the air and see at the local swap meets. They are not spring chickens. The ARRL paints a rosier picture. Highest numbers ever in 2012 they point out.   Are these mostly inactive licensees who got a license on a whim but don't really get on the air?  
"In the past 40 years, the number of Amateur Radio operators in the US has grown at a remarkable rate:

December 1971: 285,000
December 1981: 433,000
December 1991: 494,000
December 2001: 683,000
December 2012: 709,500"
http://www.arrl.org/news/2012-marks-all-time-high-for-amateur-radio-licenses

Jon

On May 12, 2014, at 8:04 PM, Jack Emerson wrote:

> Like everybody else, I have had some time to digest today’s news. While it is no surprise, I wish Ten Tec and Alpha and whoever they may merge with next nothing but the best of luck, and I’ll do my part to buy from the combined company, partly from brand loyalty, partly from the fact that both companies make great products.
> I haven’t yet had the pleasure of owning an Alpha amp, but plan to make a purchase soon. I have bought tubes from RF Concepts to feed my Titan 3, and the tubes were a bargain and continue to work to this day.
> 
> My Orion 2 remains the best radio I have ever owned, and if and when the new company comes out with a new radio (with dual receivers), I’ll buy it.
> I will most likely soon replace my Ten Tec Titan and Titan 3 amps with newer tech RF Concept/Alpha amps. 
> It’s a natural fit.
> And here’s more random thoughts, and let this sink in: The problem is not Ten Tec, and it’s not RF Concepts/Alpha. Both companies make excellent products. The problem is demographics. We went through this a few years’ ago when the WW2 generation started dying off. Fortunately, they were replaced for the most-part by the guys who had grown up with radio in the 40’s and 50’s. Well, those guys are getting older now and dying off. Unfortunately, the radio generation that came next was the CW McCAll (Convoy) group, of which I am a part. Our numbers are weak compared to the WW2 and cold-war 1950’s generation of hams. I’ve been an active ham since first firing up my Heathkit as a 13 year old Novice in May 1977, and there are many more like me, but not enough to offset what is being lost everyday as older hams die off. And the radio generation is even weaker in numbers, so you probably see what’s going on.
> 
> We have great amateur radio companies here in the U.S., and Ten Tec is as good as Elecraft, and Elecraft is as good as Alpha as is as good as Palstar. All are great companies with at least one exceptional amateur radio product, and all share similar business models, but they are all suffering from a dwindling customer base. I also own a Palstar tuner, which has been a mainstay on my desktop for many years, and I recently bought an Elecraft KX-3, which is a technological work of art.
> 
> Maybe in another 10 years, when I am ready to retire, it will all be 1 company, Palpheletec. But whatever this morphs into, as long as they continue to make the best, and keep skilled folks employed producing and marketing it, I will continue to buy it.
> 
> As stated in the topic, I wish all these companies nothing but the best, and will continue to give them my dollars for the top rate products they produce. 
> 
> Notice no mention of MFJ/HY-GAIN: Check an existing thread for my experience with that.
> 
> 73 de Jack W4TJE
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