[TowerTalk] US Tower price increase

[W0MU Mike Fatchett]

It could be that they are making a lot more money selling to commercial 
and government agencies and we trying to give hams a break.  US Tower 
used to be owned by HRO,  I believe they still are.

Tripling the price of something seems crazy though, maybe K7JA had too 
much eggnog of the holidays and corrupted the web database or something :).

W0MU

On 1/2/2017 12:38 PM, Jim Brown wrote:
> Great response, Jim. BUT -- the increase noted by the original poster 
> was that the increase was overnight!
>
> Several possible reasons for this. One is that business operations for 
> the ham market are often supported by higher volume and higher margin 
> operations for other markets. When those other markets fall apart, 
> they no longer support the ham market, or contribute to economies of 
> scale that allow lower prices.
>
> Another is corporate mergers, which can change business priorities, 
> change where products are manufactured.
>
> But assuming corporate greed as the reason for all such price 
> increases is unreasonable. It certainly can be, but there are many 
> other reasons.
>
> 73, Jim K9YC
>
> On Mon,1/2/2017 11:13 AM, jimlux wrote:
>> On 1/2/17 10:50 AM, john at kk9a.com wrote:
>>> Wow! I bought one of these new in the 80's for considerably less 
>>> than last
>>> year's pricing from Texas Towers.  It would now be unaffordable.  Does
>>> anyone else sell US Towers besides HRO?  I guess used pricing will 
>>> also go
>>> up considerably.
>>>
>>
>> 1985 to 2016 is 1:2.26 just from inflation.  I would suspect things 
>> made by mostly hand labor and steel would go up faster: it's not like 
>> a radio or computer, where you get economies of scale and lower cost 
>> from higher levels of integration. A $1000 radio today is MUCH more 
>> capable than a $1000 radio in 1985 over a broad spectrum of 
>> capabilities, and is less than half the price, in 1985 dollars.
>>
>> However a tower is basically the same thing, but made by people whose 
>> wages have gone up, with raw materials the price which has risen, and 
>> trucked by companies where the vehicle, labor, and fuel costs have 
>> gone up.
>>
>> Oil in 1985 $15/bbl, today $30/bbl (and it was pushing $100/bbl not 
>> too long ago), roughly tracks inflation
>>
>> Manufacturing wages roughly doubled roughly tracking inflation- 
>> although that's tricky, because large unionized mfrs have a large 
>> effect on average wage calculations
>>
>> Steel was $15/cwt in 1985, runs 45-50/cwt now.. the USGS analysis 
>> says that the various finanicial crises drove this increase (that is, 
>> mining iron didn't cost more.. making steel did, for various reasons) 
>> (cwt = 100 lb)
>>
>> Some manufactured goods have become more expensive because of debt 
>> service: the company took on debt to expand or stay in business, so 
>> now the end price includes interest, as well as the cost of raw 
>> materials and manufacturing cost.
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