[TenTec] Status

[Mike Bryce]

Well that’s a fine how-do-you-do this morning.

I’ve been with the same company I’m various forms for 43 years.

We were sold, went bankrupt, sold to a capital investment group, went bankrupt, sold again, did ESOP, sold, bankrupt… This went on and on.

whenever  someone want’s to “invest in your company” you’d better run. RKR wasn’t a good mix for Ten Tec. My opinion.

Mergers are never a good idea. When I hired in, the company had just under a thousand employees. Today, we have 53. Where we once had 90% of the market, we struggle with 15%. Sure, we have newer/slimmer/import competitors, but somehow though the mergers, we lost track of what we where, where we’ve been, and where we’re going. 

Right now, Ten Tec is like the company I work for. We’re barreling down hill and nobody is driving the bus.

It seems right now that Ten Tec is poking their heads down into the abyss. And to me, the last owners used the company like a beer can—they drained out the last drop and then crushed the empty shell.

The light at the end of my tunnel is getting brighter, and I can see myself retired by the time dayton 2016 arrives.  I won’t have the $$$ to throw into the pot to help Ten Tec design a new radio. Shades of ATLAS Radio come to mind when the owner said the same thing. Help me fund this new radio, and you’ll be first to own one. All the investors lost all their money.

One thing that I couldn’t understand was why Ten Tec dropped making some of the accessories that would match with their gear?They did in the past, like the antenna tuners for the corsair, the Triton’s. Ameritron can sell a four tube 811 amp for a price that makes is very easy to afford. Why can’t Ten Tec build such an amplifier? And not price it at $2999?

MFJ has ten full page ads in QST selling accessories. There had to be profit in those. But, that all being said, I never sat in one of the board meets at Ten Tec. Perhaps they were a money looser.

I certainly don’t want to sound like a monday morning quarterback and say what I’d do, because that’s so easy to do. I don’t know have a clue about the internal workings of any company, not even the one I work for.

I will throw this into the hat. 

If Ten Tec does in fact show up at dayton 2016, I’ll be happy to volunteer a few hours every day at their booth. Elecraft has volunteers, why not Ten Tec?

I wish the new owner the best of luck, and will continue to booster the company and purchase its products.

I’m mike, wb8vge

Mike Bryce
prosolar at sssnet.com