Also there is the Ameritron 1306 that adds 6 meters and computer control
to the 1300. I have one and like it.
Carl Moreschi N4PY
58 Hogwood Rd
Louisburg, NC 27549
www.n4py.com
On 12/2/2016 12:12 PM, rick@dj0ip.de wrote:
Need to update my own Post:
http://www.gbhs.it/Prodotti21.html
and
http://www.gbhs.it/Prodotti11.html
Don't let the name fool you. These are made in Italy, not Brexit.
Sooooo, that brings the total to 10 solid state amplifiers currently on the
market; 11 if we count the little Ameritron ALS-500.
However, "cheap" they are NOT!
73 - Rick, DJ0IP
(Nr. Frankfurt, Germany)
-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of rick@dj0ip.de
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2016 5:06 PM
To: 'Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment'
Subject: Re: [TenTec] An Update from Ten Tec
Well there is this:
http://www.rf-power.it/index.php/en/products/hvla700
and this:
http://www.rf-power.it/index.php/en/products/hvla1k3
and this:
http://www.linearamp.co.uk/gemini_HF.html
and this:
http://www.jumaradio.com/juma-pa1000/
and this:
http://www.acom-bg.com/products/amplifier/acom-600s-6m-amplifier
and this:
http://www.ameritron.com/Product.php?productid=ALS-600Y
and this:
http://www.ameritron.com/Product.php?productid=ALS-500M
and this:
http://www.ameritron.com/Product.php?productid=ALS-1300
... but other than those 8 solid state amps, I can't think of any either. ;-)
73 - Rick, DJ0IP
(Nr. Frankfurt, Germany)
-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Barry N1EU
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2016 4:24 PM
To: Mike Dishop; Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment
Subject: Re: [TenTec] An Update from Ten Tec
IMHO, you guys should come out with a $3000 1KW small form factor solid state
linear amp. You could sell boatloads. Evidently Elecraft's $2300 500W KPA500
sells extremely well and the SPE Expert 1KW and 1.5KW amps have long backorder
wait times. Not much else out there in terms of solid state amps.
73, Barry N1EU
On Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 1:27 PM, Barry N1EU<barry.n1eu@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for the update Mike and I wish you every success!
As far as the Eagle production, I believe it would be a tough sell at
$1699. Every indication is that transceiver architecture is moving
quickly to direct digital sampling (e.g. IC-7300) and I'd suggest
pointing your design resources in that direction or risk missing the
hf xcvr boat entirely. It is very possible Ten-Tec could leverage
their previous development in dsp firmware (Orion, Omni7, Eagle) to
accelerate the design cycle, which is apparently what Icom did with the IC-7300.
73, Barry N1EU
On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 1:36 PM, Mike Dishop via TenTec<
tentec@contesting.com> wrote:
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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