[Kenwood] Kenwood Status

[Ralph]

YEA for boatanchors............
Ralph
W8BVH

On 3/16/2022 9:16 PM, Clif Holland wrote:
> Sure is a lot of old boatanchors still in use daily.
>
> -- 
>
> Clif Holland
>
> -- 
>
> On 3/16/2022 8:11 PM, David Fine wrote:
>>   What will kill Kenwood and/or any other of the ham radio 
>> manufacturers is the lack of customers.  Too many old geezers that 
>> can afford to buy expensive radios are dying off faster than the 
>> hobby can attract younger ones to replace them.  That and the fact 
>> that new technology is becoming stagnate and if improved performance 
>> is what people actually buy new radios for, we have reached a point 
>> where there is not much improvement to be made.  You might buy a new 
>> radio for a new feature, but most of that is now done in software and 
>> can be programmed into radios to update them on the fly.  Last point, 
>> I hope the electronic parts shortages are short lived and we get back 
>> to normal delivery times or their may be some manufacturer and/or 
>> dealer fatalities.  But I am not writing an obituary for any of the 
>> major manufacturers just yet.  Dave, W0DF
>>
>>      On Wednesday, March 16, 2022, 03:12:25 PM CDT, Richard Knoppow 
>> <1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>         It may be that they (JVC) is too big. What you say about
>> making something for a limited market is true, assuming the
>> market is for low to moderately priced items. Of course, General
>> Electric builds giant engines for ships and probably does not
>> build them in great numbers, but they are extremely expensive so
>> they make money on them.  When I worked for Hewlett-Packard back
>> in the last century (and it seems to be a century ago) they came
>> out with a little solid state volt-ohm meter, the Model 427-A. I
>> have one still. We had some discussion of its price and the
>> problem of making relatively low cost instruments. I found out
>> that the cost of the 427-A was not much more than the cost of
>> doing business, that is the cost of the paper work, for anything.
>> -hp- simply could not make a complete instrument (as
>> distinguished from parts) for much less than the 427-A cost
>> without loosing money. So, they just didn't build them. Mind you,
>> this was not the cost of manufacture, saleries of workers, etc,
>> it was the cost of doing anything in a large organization. It may
>> be that Kenwood has become too large to build the kind of things
>> it does aimed at a relatively small market. Also, its possible,
>> as others have pointed out that ham radio products are the sort
>> of thing that when someone buys one it takes them out of the
>> market. For instance, buying a house generally takes someone out
>> of the market for years. The nature of ham radio is that one can
>> practice it satisfactorily with very old equipment and even home
>> made equipment (believe it or not). Its possible there is a size
>> limit: when a business gets too large is sort of collapses on
>> itself.
>>
>> On 3/16/2022 12:33 PM, K6JM via Kenwood wrote:
>>> Others have done a good job of reminding us all that these Kenwood 
>>> rumors come
>>> up every few years.  At the same time, since so far we lack further 
>>> facts, we
>>> are all free to speculate.
>>>
>>> On one of these rumor cycles about a decade ago, I found an article 
>>> about how
>>> the Kenwood amateur radio division designs new amateur radio 
>>> products.  While
>>> competitors like ICOM and Yaesu have engineers dedicated to amateur 
>>> radio,
>>> Kenwood does not.  The process instead is to have the amateur radio 
>>> group
>>> develop the requirements for a new radio, then when the project is 
>>> given the
>>> green light, they borrow designers from the commercial land/mobile 
>>> group to
>>> design the amateur radio product.  So they get high-end engineers to 
>>> do the
>>> work, but those people are not dedicated to amateur radio.
>>>
>>> And as we have all seen, they attempt to design a new radio that 
>>> leads the pack
>>> in features, with hopes the product will be viable for many more 
>>> years than is
>>> typical in the amateur radio segment.  An example is the TS-2000 -- 
>>> it was
>>> first shipped in 2001 and production was finally shut down in 2018.
>>>
>>> It is also true that the profit center for the radio side of 
>>> JVCKenwood is the
>>> commercial land/mobile part of the business.  This is a big deal, 
>>> and it is
>>> very, very unlikely JVCKenwood will exit that business.  And given 
>>> how they
>>> keep their amateur radio group's costs down but maintain high 
>>> quality, it is
>>> unlikely they will exit the amateur radio business either.
>>>
>>> But, as has been posted, we have no facts here and of course they 
>>> could decide
>>> to change course at any time.  I personally think that unlikely, but 
>>> (as they
>>> teach first-year journalism students to never write):  time will tell.
>>>
>>>        Jim - K6JM
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: kenwood-bounces at mailman.qth.net 
>>> <kenwood-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On
>>> Behalf Of Gary H. Harmon, Jr.
>>> Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2022 5:07 PM
>>> To: kenwood at mailman.qth.net
>>> Subject: [Kenwood] Kenwood Status
>>> Importance: High
>>>
>>> One of my local buds called to see if I heard any rumors about 
>>> Kenwood going
>>> out of business.
>>>
>>> Any facts or just rumors??
>>>
>>> Best 73,
>>>
>>> Gary H. Harmon, Jr. - K5JWK
>>> GROUP MODERATOR / LIST ADMINISTRATOR
>>> HAM Radio, HEATHKIT, and ATARI Archaeologist
>>>
>>>
>
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