[BC] Harris Corp. Seeks Cuts in Transmitter Business

[Chuck Lakaytis]

Rich:

I understand that radio sales at Harris have been strong.  Most of the cuts 
will probably come in the TV division.  The HDTV conversion is pretty well 
complete because of the FCC mandated date.  I have always wondered about the 
supply side of this business.  Like how many consoles manufacturers have we 
seen over the years, transmiiter manufacturers, STL and audio processor 
makers.  All of them chasing a pretty small domestic market.  I have an 
aquaintance that runs a small radio automation business.  He tells me that 
the majority of his business in now overseas, in the former Soviet Union.

Nautel has a sort of advantage because the world was always their market. 
The US is just another marketing area to them.  By the way I just installed 
a Nautel XR transmitter.  Pretty nice box.  I have followed that company 
from the AMFET10, ND10, XL12, and now the XR series.  It is interesting to 
see the engineering evolution in the design.  I still have two AMFET 10 
transmitters in service that are about fifteen years old and still chugging 
away.

But all these boxes are sort of anti-climatic.  I miss the 250 KW ISB 
suppressed carrier transmitters that I took care of an eon ago courtesy of 
Uncle Sam.
Chuck Lakaytis
Director of Engineering
Alaska Public Broadcasting, Inc.
135 Cordova Street
Anchorage, AK 99501
907 277 6300
907 277 6359 FAX
907 301 4339 Cell
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rich Wood" <richwood at pobox.com>
To: "Broadcasters' Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 4:45 AM
Subject: Re: [BC] Harris Corp. Seeks Cuts in Transmitter Business


> ------ At 10:06 AM 2/4/2007, cld at admin.umass.edu wrote: -------
>
>>Perhaps it's simply not as profitable as what they're making in military 
>>comms,
>>and with more wars likely they rather tighten their focus?
>>Seriously....
>
> Really seriously. With three of four more wars to go they're guaranteed 
> cash flow for decades to come. Once every station buys a transmitter they 
> have to wait another 30 years for the next purchase. During that time 
> they're a parts supplier. With a total universe of about 14,000 stations 
> in the US and lots of competitors they have to be global players. With a 
> Canadian manufacturer capturing a large part of the US market with a 
> superb product it must be tough to make a profit. War is a solid market 
> with no limit in sight and customers willing to pay what the market will 
> bear and then some.
>
> I think being an arms dealer would be the yellow brick road to enormous 
> profit. Just ask Cheneyburton. To get credit, Dubya has to get them going 
> within two years if he expects the next Democratic President to get the 
> blame. I understand they're making a database of nursing homes housing 
> veterans for the next source of cannon fodder once kindergartens are 
> exhausted.
>
> This may be a good move for Harris.
>
> Rich
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