HamGadgets News

Well, it was a very good trip to Dayton this year.  Our new booth location was much better than last year, and attendance (especially Saturday) was very good.  Our products were well received and we were happy to be able to meet and talk with so many new and existing customers.  All in all, we’re tired, worn out and in need of some good coffee but it was a good trip.

I should have PicoKeyer-Plus kits back in stock within a week or so at most, and I’ll be spending the next day or two catching up on the web orders that came in while we were away.  Happy hamming!

What a day!  I would have to say that after last year, the Hamvention is definitely looking healthier.  We’re certainly busier, due in part to a much better booth location.  And hams seem to be in a buying mood; conversations are more upbeat and attitudes are more positive.  All in all it feels like it’s a good sign for ham radio and the economy in general.

We sold out of PicoKeyer-Plus kits a little after lunch time today, but still have plenty of UKA-2 and ID-O-Matic II kits left.  We’ve got a few MasterKeyers that I hope to sell before we pack up tomorrow.

I’ve now met both the present and former owners of Vibroplex, as well as a few other people I had hoped to see here.  I still haven’t seen most of the Hamvention, though, and haven’t even been out to the flea market once during either trip!  Some day I’ll have to do that…

Lisa and I arrived very late Wednesday night after a 12 hour drive.  We spent yesterday unpacking and setting up the booth.  This morning the gates opened at 9 AM sharp, and it was pretty apparent within a short time that the crowd was a little bigger than last year, and the outlook was a lot brighter.  There are more vendors and more hams in Dayton this year, and things are definitely looking up.

Piero Begali is, as always, very generous in loaning us a couple of his wonderful pieces of functional Morse artwork, a Stealth and a gold-on-gold Pearl.  I also had a chance to visit with the new owner of Vibroplex, Scott Robbins W4PA, as well as several other new and old friends.

I swear, if one more person asks me about a voice keyer or a CW reader… 

Friday is pretty much behind us now.  Some great Donato’s pizza, a little relaxation and TV at the hotel, and I may even indulge in a little reward for a hard day’s work before we’re back at it in the morning.

Today I finally received new UKA-2 boards.  I changed the power input connector from the old RCA jack to the new 2.5mm/5mm barrel connector, commonly found on many “wall wart” type power supplies.  It’s also the same connector used on the MK-1, and of course I have listed a matching power cable on the web site.

Not many people liked putting a power supply on an RCA connector — there were just too many things that could go wrong.  So, this revision will fix that and make the UKA-2 a little friendlier in the shack.  Other than that I rearranged the components a little, but functionally there are no other changes.  I’ll have the new kits with me in Dayton, and will have the web site updated later today or tomorrow.

We’ll be leaving for Dayton the morning of 5/12 (Wednesday), so no orders will be shipped from 5/12 through at least 5/16.  I’ll start shipping again the 17th.

I will have the entire remaining stock of PicoKeyer-Plus kits with me in Dayton, and will probably sell out there.  It will be mid-June before I have more.   A new batch of circuit boards is on order, but I didn’t anticipate a recent bulk order and it looks like we’ll be out of stock for a few weeks after these are gone.  So, if you want a PK-Plus kit you should put your order in before 5/12.

We will be in booth 482 in Dayton, so if you plan to be there please stop by and see us.

I have been working on firmware version 1.22 for the MK-1.  Right now it’s in the Alpha test stage, though there is still some development to be done.  This is mostly a bug fix release to address some problems found in V1.21.  Most of the issues involved the USB drive save/restore.  I am also working on debugging problems with a couple of keyboards that people have found not to work.  More news to come as it develops.

During the month of April, enter the coupon code “SPRING” during checkout to get half off shipping.  This applies only to orders shipped to US addresses.  I plan on more discount specials in the future, so watch the HamGadgets home page as well as our banner ads on QRZ.COM, Eham.net and out print ads in QST and NCJ.

And no, regardless of the date – it’s not an April Fool!

I’ve been having a heck of a time nailing down a reliable supply of the pushbutton switches used in the MK-1, and it’s been causing me unimaginable headaches.  Although most distributors supposedly carry the part — manufactured by a huge Japanese company — trying to find anyone who actually has them in stock has been hit or miss.  Mostly miss.  Not a single distributor has had any in well over a month now, or I would have bought every one of them.  I have not had a delivery of switches since January, and those I “lucked” into.  So, for the past week and a half I’ve been sitting here awaiting the delivery of a backordered batch that was supposed to ship from the distributor on the 16th.

I finally have shipping confirmation, and the parts will be here late Friday afternoon.  That means I’ll have my backorders cleared out again by Saturday afternoon, and will have sufficient stock to carry me through Dayton at least.  I have also placed long term purchase orders for enough cabinets and circuit boards that we should be good for the rest of the year without any further backorder situations.  Thanks to those patient folks who have had to wait for their MasterKeyers — the wait is almost over, and hopefully we won’t see that again!

I’ve been selling PicoKeyer and ID-O-Matic kits on eBay for several years now, with generally good results.  They’ve sold fairly well, though to be perfectly honest I have no idea why.  It costs more, because I’ve got to cover the eBay listing fees and final value fees.  But, for whatever reason, I’ve had a lot of people buy from eBay auctions rather than ordering directly from the web site.

On March 30, eBay is once again raising its fees.  I’m done — I won’t be listing any more kits on eBay.  It’s gone far enough, and I’m not willing to be a part of making people pay more than they need to for kits.  It’s bad enough that they pretty much killed off any payment methods other than their own PayPal, but now the fees have just gotten out of hand.

I did some work on the web site over the weekend.  You can now place an order without creating an account, which should make some folks happier.  This means one less password to remember, of course.  it also means no email updates, newsletters or order history, but that is an acceptable tradeoff for a lot of people.

I’m doing a little more cleanup and some minor changes from time to tiem, so if you get our “Out to Lunch” page, check back again in a couple of hours.