Sent via email to subscribers on 2/4/2011:
Global what? It doesn’t seem to be getting any warmer here! Last winter was one of the longest and coldest I can remember, and right now it’s 0 degrees out (that’s about -18 for you Celsius folks) with a good stiff wind bringing the wind chill down to around -25 (-31C). Regardless of Punxsutawney Phil not seeing his shadow this morning, it feels like Spring is a long way off. I’m about ready to take up a temporary VK call!
To help warm up the depths of winter just a bit, I’m going to knock a little off the price of kits and parts. From Groundhog Day until until Valentine’s Day, your shopping cart will show a 10% discount on kits and parts – that’s everything except the MasterKeyer and touch paddles.
I have MK-1s back in stock and ready to ship, so if you’ve been holding off ordering one – now is the time. Look for a price increase around the first of March! I hope to have the new firmware available for beta testing in the next week or so. Right now I am working on fixing a bug that affects a couple of logging programs that use K1EL Winkey emulation mode, as well as a straight key bug that has affected a couple of ops.
Work is progressing on the new USB rig interface. I decided to go back and re-work the design to make it easy to provide complete optical isolation between the rig and computer. This will be especially helpful to owners of some older Kenwood rigs, as well as anyone else concerned about ground loops.
Lastly, I mentioned in the email newsletter that I was considering dropping PayPal as a payment method some time this year. based on plenty of feedback from customers, I’m scrapping that idea — PayPal will remain as a payment option. If you like PayPal, please feel free to use it. If you hate PayPal, don’t use it. 
If you don’t feel strongly one way or the other, please consider using the secure credit card payment option if you’re in the USA. For DX customers, it will actually save me a little bit in fees if you use a credit card through PayPal – but either way is fine. Of course checks (drawn on US banks only, please) or money orders are always good.
