> We radio amateurs tend to let altruistic goals cloud reality. Ham Radio is > NOT a hobby for equipment manufacturers. They do this (build equipment) to > make MONEY. As with any business decision the proponent builds a case and > projects profitability. If the $$$ aren't there we
I think we would need to see some corporation balance sheets to know that for sure for the big players. Yaecomwood and all the historical amateur equipement companies (Collins, Drake, Hallicrafters, Ten-Tec, etc.) all have/had diversified product lines, and the amateur line was just one of those. Without the commercial lines, I wonder how much sooner our old friends would have given up on the amateur sector? Currently, its hard for me to imagine ICOM would have incurred the development and startup costs to take a chance on D-Star unless Mr.Tokuzo Inoue (JA3FA), the President of ICOM Inc., didn't have some love for amateur radio. 73--John
