[NLRS] How to buy a Soft Rock

[tosca005 at umn.edu]

Here is a tip to the NLRS reflector readers on how to successfully buy a 
Soft Rock.

If you are in the market for a SoftRock kit, you already know that the 
source for kits is a one-man operation by Tony Parks, KB9YIG. Tony has 
decided that he does not want to deal in back-ordered kits, so he only 
offers kits for sale that he has on hand. When he has none of a particular 
kit available to sell, his web page simply says "Check Back Later" for that 
item. When he has put together a number of kits of a particular type, he 
changes the web page (KB9YIG.COM) to have a drop-down box where you select 
the number of kits of that type that you want to buy, where the number can 
be from 1 to however many are still in stock and not yet ordered. The trick 
is to know when kits become available, because they sell out quickly. By 
the time that word spreads via email reflectors that a kit is in stock 
again, it is often too late already.

Some folks wail and gnash their teeth over their inability to catch the 
availablity of a kit they want, but Tony is doing a fantastic service to 
the Ham community, and I applaud his approach of only taking orders that he 
knows he can fill, instead of speculating on the "market" for his kits. Too 
many one-man operations by other folks over the years have collected money 
for kits that they never managed to ship, then they went out of business, 
leaving their erstwhile customers as unhappy creditors. This simply will 
not happen when you deal with Tony.

So, how to "beat the system" and get a kit successfully?

Some folks go so far as to make his order page the default startup page of 
their web browser, so every time they start their browser, they get a peek 
at Tony's current kit status. This way, they can pounce on a desired item 
that they see has now become available.

The method I have used with success is a bit different. I use a web service 
called "WatchThatPage" to look at Tony's order page, and send me an email 
whenever his page changes. Go to this URL...
  http://www.watchthatpage.com/index.jsp
... to set up your own watch, if you wish.

Even this method is not foolproof. The service typically scans the page for 
changes once a day, and if a particular kit sells out in less than a day, 
the page could change from "check back" to "buy" and back to "check back" 
in between scans, and WatchThatPage won't know that anything happened. I 
encountered this a couple of times. The Yahoo group messages talked about a 
kit going on sale and then going out of stock, and I hadn't even been 
warned by WatchThatPage. But with a little patience and perserverence, and 
the assistance of WatchThatPage, I did manage to accumulate all of the bits 
and pieces of a complete V6.3 Rx/Tx kit:
  -- SoftRock v6.3 RxTx Xtall Transceiver Kit with Si570 and Rx BPF's
  -- 160M PA/Filter kit (for transmit on 160 meters)
  -- 80M/40M PA/Filter kit (for transmit on 80 and 40 meter bands)
  -- 30M/20M/17M PA/Filter kit (for transmit on these 3 bands)
  -- 15M/12M/10M PA/Filter kit (for transmit on these 3 bands)
  -- USB I2C Interface Kit (to control frequency via USB)

For a receive-only SoftRock, you can do it with either one or two kits:
  -- SoftRock v9.0 Lite+USB Xtall Receiver Kit with Si570 and Electronically
        Switched BPF Kit
  -- (optionally) 6M / 2M Converter for SoftRock v9.0 Receiver

Note that if you are interested in just adding a Panadapter to an existing 
radio transceiver, or you want to build a 10M SDR transceiver to use with a 
10M to 2M transverter to drive a set of microwave transverters, you don't 
need all the bits that I bought. For Panadapter use, Tony periodically has 
made available special "stripped down" kits optimized for a particular 
radio's IF frequency. For building a microwave transverter IF rig, only the 
15/12/10M PA/Filter kit is needed if you are going to use the SoftRock only 
at 10M to drive a 28->144 MHz transverter to drive one or more microwave 
transverters, for example.

Anyway, that's what worked for me. It took me a couple of months to 
accumulate all 6 kits that will make a 160 through 10 Meter SDR 
transceiver. Your mileage may vary.

Happy New Year, and Happy SoftRocking!
73 de WØJT