It soon falls into the holiday season where many look under a tree, in a store or indeed on websites to find that something for there husband, wife or partner. I would like a RM BLA1000 under the tree but that will not happen 🙂 Anyway. Forums always criticize the price of 10m / 27MHz SSB radios that they imagine are made for $20 and sold $200
The point of the article is this. Apple released last week the all new, singing and dancing iPhone 6s Plus for on average $749 in stores. And the *estimated cost is $236 so they can make $513 per unit. And this weekend they sold 12 million pieces in two days. People stand in lines, fight, pitch tents and sleep in advance for the phone to arrive in store, or sit online and watch UPS online to see where there treasured new phone is sat.
So when you buy a new SSB radio for 11m remember the amount of tests (even when a radio is bad its tested) and the set up costs, parts pieces, shipping, import duties and taxes to get stuff inside the EU. Your new iPhone will have updates, apps will need updating all through its 1 year warranty for handset and 6 months for battery for the money you pay. Your new CB has a warranty and will be repaired for 2 years, some cases 5 years and all these are budgeted into the price. I read yesterday someone write £30 more for a new Grant it is a rip off. Did you say it about your Samsung S6 Edge or iPhone? Guess not.
Cost versus features, quality against profit it is always the same. Just because maybe you cannot see the work that has happened does not mean that no work has happened. I was told today by a dealer who is well known that President worked on the new Grant II Premium almost 18 months. Whether you pay staff $1000 or $4000 a month there is a cost, plus Japanese salaries in Uniden, salaries in Korea, salaries in China. You don’t see the cost but it is there, a cost. Prototypes, testing, DHL from Asia, FedEx, UPS whatever it is.
So to cut a very long article short. No matter if made in Vietnam, Korea, China there is a cost, the Asian factories although cheaper than western ones don’t run on nothing. iPhone is like an AT-5555 it evolved from the days of the Hannover prototype in EU (Thanks Markus) to the new V6-V7 and it had its bumps along the way. Albrecht BETA tested the SSB community with the AE5890EU which is now in V2 or V3 and President had the Lincolns with an issue, and Grant II with low power. And the parallel is this. iPhone bends in your pocket for $700 but you still will want or get the new one.
All are made for a cost, all are made with the best intentions, all need money paid before something even enters the drawing stage on the PC.
President will never be as good as a $2,000 Kenwood, Albrecht not the same audio as a $1400 Yaesu and a Qixiang like a Icom for example. Its easy to say why does this cost more, why is the CRT7900 a little more expensive than the same AT5555N but CRT comes with CTCSS, Anytone not. But there is still a cost involved. And if you buy a CB disguised as a Ham Radio that’s it. It is a CB radio disguised as a Ham Radio.
CB will always be CB, Amateur Radios will always be Amateur Radios. You won’t get a kenwood Icom or Yaesu hidden inside an export CB radio
Don’t dream of a Ferrari when your money in pocket is Audi
Price Estimate iPhone: http://tinyurl.com/na7yeoq
It can happen sometimes mistakes are made, but most important is to find them, cure them, go onwards. Not sit with eyes 1/2 open.
All Rights Reserved (c) http://www.simonthewizard.com 2013-2014-2015 Unathorised Use / Or Duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to simonthewizard and http://www.simonthewizard.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.