[Towertalk] The Ham Radio Business

[K6RB]

With regard to the ham radio business, in my experience only two kinds of
companies ultimately thrive - those who sell things much cheaper than
everyone else; and those who provide reasonable prices and impeccable
service. Wal-Mart is the model for the first; Ten-Tec is the model for the
second.

The Internet provides a means of selling things cheaper. If you can garner a
large enough customer base, you can buy things in quantity, and if most of
your customers buy online, your costs of sales decrease allowing you to make
a profit on a price your bricks-and-mortar competitors cannot come close to
matching. Furthermore, if you live in California, say, and buy a piece of
gear from AES in Las Vegas, you don't pay tax, you just pay shipping. In
most cases, that's a significant savings.

There's no real advantage to buying locally. If you return the item for
repair, they send it to the factory, anyway, and it takes just as long to
get it back as dealing with a store in another state. The only advantage to
a local purchase is immediate gratification - you don't have to wait for
delivery. The other aspect of local sales - helpful advice - has always been
in short supply and questionably objective.

Ultimately, ham stores will locate regionally in areas of cheapest real
estate and do all their sales via phone and Internet. And as online sales
become more prolific, the manufacturers themselves will begin dealing
directly - as Ten-Tec now does - cutting out the middlemen and their costs.
And, by the way, the only two times I needed Ten-Tec service advice (for an
Omni D and a Centurion amplifier), both problems were resolved over the
phone by knowledgeable, helpful Ten-Tec technicians. I had good advice from
an Icom service person, too, but had to send the transceiver back for
service, anyway.

Ten-Tec may also be onto something even bigger - the transition from
hardware to software sales. Today, PC features are all manifested in the
software they run, not the hardware that runs them. Software-defined radio
(SDR) has implications for ham radio, too. You buy a hardware platform, like
Pegasus or Orion, and update it over time with new software. Incremental
improvements are purchased at incremental costs and we may never have to do
wholesale swapping of hardware to get them. As that becomes mainstream,
we'll be able to buy our upgrades online and take delivery within minutes,
too. The hardware will become commodity priced and software upgrades will be
value-priced but still lots cheaper than replacing a rig every new sunspot
cycle.

As for the future of our hobby, ham radio will probably outlive most of us.
But the population will continue to dwindle. Let's face it, the magic that
attracted most of us to the hobby is passe, today. My kids can buy two
walkie-talkies for under $20 and play radio in the field behind our house. I
can exchange email messages with people all over the world regardless of
sunspot cycle, propagation or time of day. It's hard for me to describe the
magic and wonder of HF communications to people who call a colleague in
China on their 10-ounce cell phone. Let's cherish our hobby for as long as
we live, but recognize that some day it will be as arcane as speaking
"esperanto."

Just my two cents.

73,

Rob K6RB