Jim is correct. The $800 transceiver likely has a mediocre receiver at
best. Of course many hams don't care and most really will never realize the
difference as price is the total objective. After all, it's only a hobby!
.
On manufacturing, give me a million $1 dollar items to produce and I'll show
you a profit. Give me single 1 million dollar item and I'd be lucky to
break even. There is a point of cost vs. qty. or qty vs. cost. You
manufacturing folks certainly understand this. You bean counters only look
at the bottom line. Us engineers look at performance and quality and any
relationship to cost is really not too important. And you marketing folks
wanted it yesterday for $0.50. There are no winners in this circle.
I saw the proto last year at the hamfest. I also saw the matching
transceiver. Tentec has done their market research and decided that there
is a market for this amp and subsequent transceiver to follow. The
engineering, the manufacturing and the certifications {a big one} all add to
the cost to produce and market this amp.
You want champagne........don't expect to pay Budweiser prices. In other
terms, if you can't run with the big dogs, then best say under the porch.
73
Bob, K4TAX
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Brown" <k9yc@audiosystemsgroup.com>
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 7:50 PM
Subject: Re: [TenTec] new amp
On 8/16/2012 3:04 PM, Richards wrote:
I can buy an entire 100 watt transceiver
for less than $800. Why pay that much for
just the 100 w amp section ?
But can you buy a 100w transceiver OF THAT QUALITY for that price?
There's another technical issue that was pointed out in a discussion of
the pricing of this amp on the Elecraft forum. An important element of
keeping ANY power amp clean is negative feedback, and the more gain you
have to play with, the more you can do for the same dollars. In effect,
you're doing the same job twice -- first for the exciter (in this case,
5W) and again in the outboard linear.
And there's yet another very simple economic issue that I learned about
working in pro audio as a design consultant. You want a "black box" with
a power cable -- you're going to have to pay $200 for it. You want it to
DO something? $210. Why? Design, manufacturing, marketing,
documentation, commissions, etc.
There's also the matter of QUANTITY -- how many can you sell? A large
part of the cost of a low volume product is design, including the cost
of putting it in production. And putting it in production is not simple
-- you've got to find reliable sources of reliable parts, you've got to
buy and stock them, you've got to train people to build and test them.
Ham radio products are low volume by the nature of our hobby, and ANY
100W amp is likely to be a an even lower volume product. Design,
documentation, and manufacturing costs are a FAR higher percentage of a
product that you can't sell very many of.
Also, an amp intended for sale to a wide market must work with a wide
variety of rigs, so it must be more flexible than the output stage of a
100W transceiver. There are issues like control functions and ALC, for
example.
73, Jim K9YC
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