Heathkit Resurrection

[Bruce Muscolino]

John,
>
> One word comes to mind... Elecraft.
>
Thus dar Elecraft's products have been largely aimed at the QRP market.
They do build a good product and overwhelm you with their product
support, but it remains to be seen what their results will be in the
larger ham market.

So far they are a phenomenon in the QRP world, but the QRP world
consists of only about 10,000 to 15,000 hams.  After they have saturates
that market the real crunch will come.  Remember the IBM-PC?  They
saturated the market with the old 8088, two disk drive system, and then
wondered why the sales of the XT were so flat!

Added performance is not really much of an incentive to buy a new
product and scrap the old one!  This is true in business and also
personal products.
>
> Here's another idea/company... Ten-Tec.  Why don't these guys bring back an
>
Perhaps they can't get sufficient parts inventory for these older
radios.  Perhaps they don't think the market is interested.  Their users
seem to want high performance!  Perhaps they haven't thought of it!  Ot
really takes a lot of money to Kr a product.  The assembly is the
smallest part of the cost.  They are smart, they use automated assembly
and testing.  Ham radio is a small part of their product mix, they also
build many government and industrial communications systems.  THe labor
content of their gear is small.  They already have a kit business.  It
is slowly being expanded to include more complex gear.
>
> The earlier poster hit the nail on the head: mass market products won't have
> widespread kit appeal here in the US (but they might in Third World
> countries where one's labor is cheap).
>
Mass market products have their largest appeal in large industrialized
countries.  people are willing to pay for assembled and tested prefects
in order to have more free time to use them!  Third world countries may
indeed fit your description, but where would they get the money to buy
the product in the first place?  They are have more basic needs, like
food, clothing, and shelter!  Even if you wanted to, it would be hard to
concentrate on technology if your stomach was empty!

73

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