> Thanks for the info, Adam. I hope that Ten Tec will take advantage of
> the world commercial market, too. I recall that Paragons were sold to
> the U. S. government under a GSA contract. Fortunately, this did not
> drive up the amateur price. I always suspected that the big increases in
> price of the old Collins S-line were due to the fact that they could
> sell to the government for a high price, so they jacked up the price to
> amateurs as well.
Actually, it works just the opposite---the more of them they can sell,
whether to the government or anyone else, the less expensive they become to
manufacture. In an open market, those savings get passed to the user in
order to maximize sales.
We should hope that Ten Tec is able to sell the heck out of their
transceivers---we in the amateur community will benefit in at least two
ways. First, Ten Tec will be able to justify more investment in R&D and
manufacturing technology, permitting us to have a more advanced product.
Second, the economy of scale permits us to get all this at a reduced price.
Surely you don't think that the state of the art of modern communications
equipment is a result of a hundred years of amateur sales, do you?
Best,
Travis N5AY
|