[TowerTalk] Force 12 Production

[William Hein]

Many of you will know InnovAntennas purchased Force 12 last November and
moved the factory from Texas to Colorado.  Production was essentially shut
down for two months during the transition.

We are shipping antennas every day and are shipping LPT Towers as well. An
LPT-620 went to Montana today in fact.  We manufacture VHF and UHF (6m and
up) antennas at the InnovAntennas Canvey UK factory and these deliveries
are being dispatched typically between 1 to 3 weeks from date of order and
delivered via Fedex Priority International which is awesomely fast (1 day
delivery to the US not unusual).

We introduced a new line of Justin G0KSC designed multi-monobanders in the
XR Series - XR3, XR4, XR5-S, XR5-T and XR6 - that use a new bracket system
designed by Kurt K7NV who also did the overall mechanical design in
collaboration with Justin. These have been very popular and orders are
running double our original expectations.

We are also continuing to produce most of the existing Force 12 models due
to their solid performance and ongoing popularity (notable exception are
the linear loaded models which we have discontinued).  We are calling these
the "Legacy" models and we intend to support them indefinitely.

A free shipping promotion we have been running, which ends in a few days,
also drove some new business.

Speaking frankly, production of the Legacy models has taken longer than
anticipated.  There is large number of designs we are supporting and we
have to be careful we are making the most recent version of each Legacy
model - but this research only needs to be done once per model.  The second
time we make a model it goes much quicker.

We decided to redesign the Delta Coils that are used for 40m inductive
element loading on a number of models for higher Q and improved
performance.  The new ones are made by Mike Kelly / Seco-Systems, the
Tornado Tuner guy, and are excellent.  We got a delivery of coils from Mike
last week and are cranking on a backlog of Delta antennas now.

When we purchased Force 12 we intended to bring down the historic delivery
lead times but have not yet done so.  None of us are happy with this.  We
imported one of our UK factory team, Jamie Dean, to work here in Colorado
for a month to get the backlog down. he arrived last week and has help
increase our workflow considerably.  We also hired another full-time
factory person who starts next Monday.

Mea culpa - we should have expected the heavy order volume and geared
production to suit earlier.  We also should have anticipated the ramp up to
produce the Legacy models.  Customer feedback - pro and con - on all topics
is helpful and I accept the criticisms.  We intend to build the world's
highest performance antennas and want our customers to expect nothing less
than the best in performance and also service.

I'm headed back downstairs to finish work on Delta-240.  A large batch of
XR series antennas is under way and a pair of LPT-834s is off for powder
coating.

Bill

William Hein
Force 12 / InnovAntennas America
RF Acquisitions International Inc.
566 West Crete Circle, Unit 1
Grand Junction, Colorado 81505 USA

mobile +1 (970) 628-5120
toll free (888) 998-8541
fax +1 (714) 895-3714
Bill at Force12inc.com
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