Mike, thank you for taking the time to give us all an honest update on the
status of TEN-TEC.
As Net Manager of the 10 weekly TEN-TEC Nets, I want to assure you that I
and all of our
hundreths of TEN-TEC Net Members fully understand the great task you have
taken, in order
to save the TEN-TEC Amateur Radio Company.
We all are behind you with our prayful support and wish you and your
companies the very
best of suucess.
God bless you and your dear family and have a BLESSED THANKSGIVING.
Philippians 4:19
John D. Occhipinti, K3UR
Net Manager, ten_tec Amateur Radio Nets
QRZ Page: http://www.qrz.com/db/k3ur
Group Owner, ten_tec Amateur Radio Net Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ten_tec_radio_net/
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https://soundcloud.com/john-occhipinti-k3ur/sets/brotherjohns-most-popular
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Dishop via TenTec" <tentec@contesting.com>
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Cc: "Mike Dishop" <n8wff@yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2016 1:36 PM
Subject: [TenTec] An Update from Ten Tec
Greetings Friends and Fellow Ten Tec Enthusiasts,
Iwanted to update you on what is happening in Sevierville. The
SmokeyMountains are literally fogged in with smoke in some places as
Tennessee hasmany wild fires burning. I was there two weeks ago and have
never experiencedanything like it. Driving down Jellico Mountain on I75 it
became literally IFRconditions with near zero visibility from the smoke.
Assome of you know Ten Tec has been occupying office condominium space
behind thesite of the former factory were now a Wal-Mart Express is
sitting. Thissite is not appropriate for our needs. Starting last week,
weare moving out of this location into a more industrial friendly
space.Unfortunately this location is not zoned for commercial walk in
traffic, so thedays of someone showing up at the factory door
unfortunately have come toan end. After an entire year of searching for
any possible opportunity tomove, this is all we have been able to come up
with. Commercial realestate is completely out of control in Sevierville
county because of thetourist industry, and unless we have about a half
million dollars toinvest in the factory location you can just forget about
it. Ten Tec is"too small" to receive any incentive, tax breaks or help
from the localso called "Economic Development" office. My opinion is
thatthe State and local government of Tennessee is about as economically
unfriendlyto a small business or start up business as is possible. For
example, inother counties in TN the standard is to create 10 new jobs to
get anyincentive. Sevier County arbitrarily requires 25 jobs. By
mycalculations, 25 jobs would be around a million dollar pay roll if the
jobsaveraged 15 dollars an hour to the employee with a 25% more overhead
to theemployer. Any business having that kind of payroll better have about
10million in gross receipts which would put it at DOUBLE the IRS
definition of asmall business and QUADRUPLE the IRS definition of a
microbusiness, so it isobvious that the economic development offices do
not have any mandatewhatsoever to support or help ANY small business
reason the scale of anindividual person's finances. The fact that Ten Tec
must havecontributed millions of tax dollars to the local economy over the
last 50 yearsmeans nothing. In many states, these economic development
offices arepartially funded by the local Chamber of Commerce. It is my
opinion theseoffices function as intelligence gathering units to forewarn
their members ofany possible competitor entering their area. If small
business is truly theeconomic growth engine of the United States it is
apparent to me why we havegrowth problems if we depend on these
organizations to help us as individuals.It seems ironic that the company
named TEN TEC for Tennessee Technologies can'tget any assistance at all in
Tennessee considering the state's advertising oftheir "Tennessee
Technology Initiative". If you are wondering why I wrote all thisabove it
is to head off the endless string of expert recommendation that Icontact
TVA and the local economic development. I’ve done it and nobody is going
to help Ten Tec in the State of Tennessee.
Toget back on track, I stated above we are moving the remainder of this
month.You all know what that means. Service will be slow this month.
Robertdecided not to have you send in radios this month so we wouldn't
have to movethem. There is no cause for alarm or speculation. Service
willcontinue just as soon as we are moved. I hear and read all kinds of
gossip andcomplaints and this and that about our service, and none of it
even close toaccurate. We have serviced hundreds of radios this year and
have a bunch ofhappy customers. You will see in the reflector some guy
complaining orsaying he is worried and then five people saying everything
was fine. I'mso sick of it. Really it is so frustrating, especially when
some of youcall or write me up in Ohio about your twenty year old radio. I
can'thelp you. I'm not in Tennessee. The people there run things and do
their jobessentially under Boyd's supervision. I don't want to sound
condescending oraloof or unreasonable or unfriendly but please see this
from my perspective.There are thousands of you and one of me. I am
responsible to run thiscompany and pay the people who work here whose
families depend on me. Iam an electrical engineer and my time needs to be
spent getting the newproducts developed and out the door, not with a dial
string for your old thingthat I neither sold you or received any benefit
of selling to you. Canyou directly call the president of Icom? Does Eric
answer the telephonewhen you call Elecraft? It is just not possible for me
to answer everyemail and every telephone call about service issues. If you
call me atDishtronix and leave a message asking me to call you about your
Ten Tec I'm notreturning your call. If I answer I'm going to tell you we
have put up theprocedure that you email service@tentec.com. Yes, I have a
telephone atTen Tec and no, you can’t have it. We are short staffed
because we do nothave sales volume at this time to support a large
overhead. This way,Robert can go through all of the email and respond at
one time in the morning,then spend the rest of the day shipping radios and
parts orders without beinginterrupted. He is there three days a week, so
you don't get answers onMonday or Friday. Sure, I know some of you don't
like it. There is no needto tell me about it. I don't like it either, but
until we start having alot more cash flow that is the way it has going to
have to be. For those thatcomplain about how long it is taking, please
understand this is a milliondollar endeavor and money like that just doesn’t
grow on trees, at least forme. Of course any of you wealthy gentlemen
looking for a good cause to donatesome money too - I would love to have
the cash on hand to turn thingsaround tomorrow. Until then I’ll be working
16 hours a day seven days a weekwith no days off and scrimp and save and
spend carefully and build up slowlyjust like every other hard working guy
has to do.
WhatI am going to try to do next is set up sort of an email hotline for
critical caseswith Bob if he will do it. I just thought of this and have
to talk to him aboutthis.
OK,enough about that. Let’s get on to some better stuff. Many of youknow
that under RFC and RKR Ten Tec quit doing their PCB assembly inhouse.
Those of you who have known me over the decades at Dishtronix knowmy shop
suffered heating issues that made it tough for the machinery to run inthe
end of January to February artic blasts. Well, I have a new and verynice
double insulated, heated and cooled free span metal building where
I'vemoved my PCB assembly operation and this is something I'm very
excitedabout. The building has a metal skin totally covering the inside
withgood overhead fluorescent lighting and conduit encased electrical
outletsevery 12 feet around the perimeter. I have retired the older
ContactSystems placement machines in favor of newer MYDATA (Micronics
Sweden)placement machines. I installed the first MY9 machine this last
June and havebeen using it to build boards for the RX340 commercial orders
we have beenfulfilling. Ten Tec did have a MY9 when they were building
boards inhouse. The MYDATA machines are the choice for high mix medium
volumeproduction, especially when equipped with the Agilis quick change
feedersystem. Feeders usually cost more than the machines in this
business, and I'vebeen growing my collection all year. I am about a third
of the way tohaving the collection of feeders I would like to have.
Earlier this month I gotlucky and was able to purchase the bar code
software which will allow me toload and unload components from the machine
by just scanning with the barcodereader, and it is done offline. It will
help with inventory control andcomponent management which is a real
nightmare considering Ten Tec has over7000 different line items.
TheMY9 machine has a capability to hold up to 96 different components and
has asingle mounting head. As I write this, an air ride big rig is getting
closerand closer to Ohio hauling a MY19 machine in from San Francisco
which can hold anadditional 160 different components (total 256 8 mm
tapes) and has 8 mountingheads! Hopefully this machine will be brought
online successfully and notbe damaged or in bad shape as I've bought it
sight unseen. I've alsomoved the 8 zone, lead free capable, pin chain
conveyor equipped ElectrovertBravo 8105 oven to the new building last
weekend. This gives us thecapability to process double sided surface mount
and the ability to reliablyprocess BGA chips. I've also purchased this
summer but not yet installedan X ray machine to do 100% inspection of the
BGA reflow solderingprocess. With the existing equipment (stencil
printers, board washers,etc.) this will give us what I believe is the most
well equipped and modern PCBmanufacturing of any amateur radio
manufacturer in North America. Ibelieve the other guys outsource their
board assembly. It may be thesmart thing to do, but I personally prefer to
buy and house my own componentsin house and to have total control over my
assembly process. I find itrequires more time to outsource and get
constant bids for things like this thanto just own the equipment and do it
myself. I think you get a better product atless cost. Of course the best
reason in my opinion for doing it all in house isI can do as small of a
production run as I want, IF I am willing to spend thetime to set up and
do it. Hence the decision for the quick change capability ofthe MYDATA
system. So, all in all what this means is the Phoenix isrising. I am
rebuilding Ten Tec and preparing to do some serious manufacturing,which
brings me to my next point.
Mostof you know we have been bogged down and overwhelmed with the
commercial sideof our business this last year since I officially assumed
the helm in January.With trying to replenish the hard to get / long lead
time / lasttime buy / obsolete parts, rebuild the PCB assembly operations,
moving,and so on we just haven't had the horsepower to build any
amateurtransceivers. Well, the good news is we have caught up on our
commercialcontracts. Be glad we did this. You know all the stuff I wrote
aboutabove? The commercial contracts paid for that. Without this TEN TEC
wouldnot exist right now. We are at a very important cross roads right
now. What do we do next?
Someof you know we are developing new products. Those are still off on
thehorizon. What I need to know is how many of you would purchase Eagles
ifthey were available? I'd like to do a run of 100 of them next. It is
agreat radio. I like mine every bit as well as my Orion II. The
DSPfunction is superb.
Wehave to talk a little bit about price. When the Eagle was launched it
wasa $2100 radio with no accessories. You all know the story of the blow
outsales and the liquidation as the previous owners sold everything that
wasn'tnailed down on their way out. Some of you got fully loaded radios
for$1299 or whatever. You know they didn't even cover their assembly cost
onthat, right? Some of you got real bargains. Of course only the last
35radios or something were sold at that price but you get the point.
Youwill never see a price like that again. If I have to sell and Eagle
atthat I will close and lock the doors and be done with it. A strip
modelneeds to sell at 1699 at least. The more you are willing to pay for
aradio the faster the new radios can come out. We want to build radios
andsell them so we can keep the production team in place so we can meet
the demandwhen the new radios come out. Everything we do tomorrow depends
on how much yousupport us today.
I'mcertain some of you have heard that I and two partners acquired Alpha
and thatI've been officially at the Helm since August. It is a separate
companyfrom Dishtronix / TEN TEC. Of course I will be building the
circuitboards for those products as well. I'm after something business
peoplecall economy of scale, essentially having enough product flow
through the doorsto totally occupy the machines and infrastructure. I'll
be making apost on that reflector as well to update those customers also.
Bythe way, we do have RX340s available to build on short notice now.
Letme close by wishing you all a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving holiday, one
of myfavorites and of course the reason I see my dentist in November for
my prefeast tune up. The Sevierville team and I appreciate your support
for TenTec, where we believe we are once again Making America Great - One
Radioat a Time.
VY73 DE MIKE N8WFF
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