On Jan 19, 2011, at 5:41 PM, Ron Notarius W3WN wrote:
And of course, the question of how much this would all cost is an
issue. Assuming that there is someone willing & able to do this,
would they be able to do so and not lose money in the process? It's
one thing if a replacement board would be, say, under $200. It's
another if it's over $500.
The real problem is the development cost. The cost of designing the
board, writing the software if needed, building a prototype, testing
it in a radio and then translating all of that to production is all up
front.
So you are betting that if you invest the money, you will at least
break even, or hopefully make enough profit to have made the effort
worthwhile. It's not a few hundred dollars, where someone might do it
for the heck of it, or to keep a favorite radio alive, but possibly
$50,000 or $100,000 or more.
Assuming the people doing the actual work don't charge for their time,
but you have to pay for parts, protyping, etc, it could easily run
$10,000 for the first board.
So for someone to do this on their own, and just front the money for
the "other" expenses, they would have to sell 100 boards at $100 over
cost to get their investment back.
A company like Ten-Tec would have to pay full cost for everything and
re-coup that money plus profit. Meanwhile they have to balance it
against what the people are not doing, for example do you really want
those improvements or fixes to the Orion II or Eagle to wait while
someone is working on the Omni 6?
They also have to balance it against future sales. If every dead logic
board means a sale of an OII or an Eagle, it would be difficult to
justify the expense.
If every dead Omni 6 was due to the logic board, it means they are all
going to die and there is nothing anyone can do about it without a big
investment. If it's only one in 10 then it does not make a lot of
sense. It would be cheaper to buy a dead Omni 6 with a different fault
(e.g. blown finals) and stick the logic board from it into yours.
Geoff.
--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it.
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