[TenTec] Scale Of Eagle Production

[Mike Bryce]

I  couldn’t keep my dog out of this hunt.

Aside from what everyone and his brother wants in a new ten tec radio, in my opinion, we’re all missing one important point.

And while I have no numbers or figures to back up what I’m about it say, just listening around is enough for me.

so, that important point?

Everyone thinks Ten Tec is out of business.

I too applaud Mike’s efforts and I’ll support the company as much as I can. But think about it? You’re going to drop between $1600 and $2000 for a radio that you might not be able to get repaired a year later because Ten Tec might once and for all go out of business.


Yesterday I went to a hamfest and overheard two hams talking about Ten Tec. Well that piqued my interest. They were complaining that there is no place or no one that will repair the equipment. I of course told them that’s not true and in fact the factory is doing repairs with a turn over of about two weeks.

As the conversation continued, apparently one of the guys thought the company was still selling radios. I told him they were not, but according to the owner, they do plan on making a run of Eagle transceivers in a month or two. He said he wouldn’t buy one no matter what they sell for, simply because he couldn’t rely on them to be around if needed.

So, like the legendary Phoenix that rose from the ashes, Ten Tec is going to pop back up on the radar, sell a hundred rigs and then what? Is Joe ham going to run out and buy one? How many “Elmers” out there are going to tell his student, to ‘buy a Ten Tec radio?’ Sure. Sure. Sure. I drank the Kool-aid. Great radios. Best ever made. Outstanding factory service. Yada, Yada, Yada.

The fix? I’m no Rhodes scholar, but for the cheap, how about a company sponsored Facebook page? I’m talking one managed by the company and not a fan based page. If Ten Tec doesn’t have the resources in man power, grab a teenager and have him/her build the page. It’s free.

Will Ten Tec be set up at Dayton Hamvention? They’d better be. Sure, of course I know that takes money. It would be money well spent though. I’d even go so far as to suggest running a 1/12 page ad in QST. If nothing else, letting the ham population know the company is alive, in good hands, and will producing product soon. That way the guy that’s thinking of buying a new radio, that doesn't know that Ten Tec is still in business, might consider Ten Tec if he knew they’re still around.

So, that’s my take on it. It’s not about producing the next IC7300. Or living the dreams of the ultra Ten Tec radio by a bunch of us here on this reflector. The company needs to make money. Bottom line. And if that means, like Terry said, selling the things that sell well, while producing the maximum profit, then that’s what should be done.


The ham radio community needs to know that Ten Tec has rose from the ashes. It’s alive and kicking. The company needs to sell product to not only the group on this reflector, but to everyone that has a ham ticket.


Mike, WB8VGE



Mike Bryce
prosolar at sssnet.com

“The trouble with quotes on the Internet is that you never  know if they are genuine”

—Abraham Lincoln







> On Feb 20, 2017, at 8:38 AM, terry foskey via TenTec <tentec at contesting.com> wrote:
> 
> Eagle numbers at $1600 per unit.  Thats a stoudt price point when comparing to an Icom 7300.
> How many units to produce meaningful funding for R&D expansion?
> Let's assume $300 or $500 profit per unit (thats after Overhead, Labor and Materials), 100 unit run, that's $30 to $50K in profit.  Probably optimistic numbers.
> 
> Let's assume the R&D cost per engineering hour is $100 per hour, you are looking at 300 to 500 hours being produced from a 100 unit run.  What can be engineered from 300 to 500 hours of R&D funding?  Certainly not something which is far afield from existing products.
> This is my point,  is it better to somehow take this down time, take profit from other commercial products and use the profit on a quick R&D effort to revamp an existing product or use the time to produce a radio with limited demand? Then take more time (if the Eagle sells) to make something for next year.
> If you want to produce something now, make Alpha Wattmeters, Amplifiers, TenTec manual Tuners, accessories, etc....Figure out which products will sell with the largest profit margin and go for it.
> 
> I applaud Mike's efforts and I will support TenTec but not via an Eagle purchase.  I don't believe the Eagle has the feature set being sought by customers.
> N5TF,Terry
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