[Kenwood] TS7000 approved and are order taking

[Mike McCarthy, W1NR]

Icom makes 2 way radios.  Yeasu makes 2 way radios.  Ham radios are a huge 
portion of their business.  They can afford to produce a very few expensive 
radios to bolster their bread and butter lower priced rigs.  Yeasu never 
recouped their investment in the FT-ONE.  Icom didn't recover their expenses 
on the 781 until after it's market life expectancy was exceeded (which it 
did by many years).

Kenwood makes consumer electronics.  2 way radios are a small fraction of 
their business and Ham radio even smaller still.  It appears that Kenwood is 
content to make equipment they can sell to the masses and recoup their 
engineering investments and make a decent profit.  How would the radio 
division justify to the executive bean counters the rational of designing 
and marketing a very expensive piece of equipment to a handful of customers 
and probably loose money in the process?

Anyway, I consider the TS-480 a vast improvement over the 706MKIIG.  I would 
be interested to see how the 7000 compares with a fully xtal filtered 
TS-480.  Bet they come out even!

Mike, W1NR

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Geiger" <ne0p at lcisp.com>
To: <we9m at decaturwb.com>; <kenwood at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 3:46 PM
Subject: Re: [Kenwood] TS7000 approved and are order taking


> In one Kenwood ad, Kenwood claims that the TS570 is the best selling rig 
> on
> the market today.  Does anyone have actual figures to back that up, or 
> care
> to agree or disagree with it?  I would have to unfortunately say that the
> Icom 706MKIIG is probably the best selling rig in the market today, but 
> that
> view might be blinded some by the fanaticism of its owners.  Talk about an
> undeserved cult following.
>
> 73s John NE0P
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Gregory Taylor" <we9m at decaturwb.com>
> To: <kenwood at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 8:34 PM
> Subject: Re: [Kenwood] TS7000 approved and are order taking
>
>
>> Has anyone taken the time to look at the Product Reviews on eham.net?
> Look
>> at how many reviews there are for the TS-2000.  You know it would be nice
> if
>> everyone could afford a $5k - $10k rig, but for the average ham out there
>> most budgets are limited to $1k - $2k. I have a TS-2000 as well as a
> TS-50,
>> TS-870 and a TS-830. Right now it seems Kenwood is selling plenty of rigs
> to
>> stay in business while meeting the needs of the average ham. I really
> don't
>> think there is that perfect rig out there that would satisfy everyone. I
>> have been a very happy Kenwood user for many years.
>>
>> Really now ask yourself, which makes more sense selling 1000 rigs for
> $10k -
>> $13k OR 1,000,000 for $1.6k? I know we would all like to think that the
>> manufacturers are there for us, but in reality we are there for them. 
>> They
>> do just enough to keep selling their wares.
>> Do the math.
>>
>> 73 de
>>
>> WE9M Greg
>>
>> we9m at arrl.net
>> http://users.decaturwb.com/we9m/index.htm
>>
>> "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
>> nothing."  Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
>>
>>
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>
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