270degrees
10-07-2009, 04:19 PM
Don't know if anyone else has wondered .....
I Emailed to Antennacraft and asked about the U4500.
The reply was that - they have been so swamped with business,
they haven't had time to introduce any new antennas.
She also said that they were going to take mention of it off the website to avoid confusion.
I'm baffled ..... How hard can it be to gear up to produce it ?
Seems like you could sell even more antennas.:what:
I sure would like to try one.
As an aside ..... the reply-to came from radioshack.com.
I didn't know Radioshack owned Antennacraft.:eyecrazy
tigerbangs
10-07-2009, 06:21 PM
As an aside ..... the reply-to came from radioshack.com.
I didn't know Radioshack owned Antennacraft.:eyecrazy[/QUOTE]
Oh yeah, they have owned them for years, but they DON'T sell the same antennas. Some people are prejudiced against AntennaCraft just because Radio Shack DOES own them, but, in my experience, they make decent antennas. There are a few antennas that they make that are actually innovative. One criticism that I have heard is that they corrode prematurely, although I cannot personally confirm that.
They make decent yagis, and, until recently, they made the last of the available VHF broadband deep-fringe antennas. When i called them to ask about getting some, they told me that they had been discontinued. Apparently, they are so overwhelmed with business in the past few months that they can't get enough raw materials to make antennas for the orders that they have.
aka.Hooper
10-07-2009, 06:39 PM
So let me get this straight...
Radio Shack owns Antennacraft, which produces a pretty decent product.
But RS doesn't sell that product, and instead chooses to market a considerably inferior product?
That makes perfect sense...:what:
tigerbangs
10-07-2009, 09:53 PM
So let me get this straight...
Radio Shack owns Antennacraft, which produces a pretty decent product.
But RS doesn't sell that product, and instead chooses to market a considerably inferior product?
That makes perfect sense...:what:
Yes, an inferior product with lots of profit. But AntennaCraft also makes plenty of other product, too, stuff that you can't buy from Radio Shack. You won't see any of the Radio Shack antennas on the AntennaCraft site.
As the story goes, Charles Tandy, the fellow who bought Radio Shack back in the 1960's and built it to the chain that it is today, was a believer in having as vertical a supply chain as possible. He went on a company buying binge in the 1960's where he picked up companies like O'Sullivan furniture, Memorex, and Color Tile (he was opening stores so fast that he found out that it was cheaper to buy the company than buy flooring at retail!)
Radio Shack stores have evolved a lot over the years. Did you know, for example, that at one time, Radio Shack sold McIntosh, KLH, H.H. Scott, and other high-end audio equipment? They also delivered the first personal home computer to the world.
Tandy also owned Tandy Leather, Bombay Furniture Company, Antennacraft, Tandy Computer, and a whole slew of other companies. Tandy was a high-flying Texas-type mogul who, thought BIG. Managing all those companies was another story altogether, but Tandy's biography is a very interesting read: they don't make moguls like him anymore! LOL
