Ramsey Kits Kaput

[W3WN]

http://www.arrl.org/news/ramsey-kits-calls-it-quits

If anything, I'm surprised that they lasted this long.

Regardless, if there's anything you are interested in, search Amazon -- sounds like once they're gone, they're gone!

[KC2UGV]

And, they're still astronomically priced, for what they're selling...

I mean, kits can live on. But, they have to be reasonably priced. 20M qrp, CW only kit: $50. Man, I can cobble that together for about $20 in parts, without the volume discount one could get as a larger org.

[ka4dpo]

I hear there is a mystery buyer looking to re activate them but it's only a rumor at this point.;)

[N2CHX]

Some of their kits were crap, some were OK. I bought more than a few as a kid. Some were disappointing, but I made good use of their ham receiver kits. I used to go right their showroom floor in Victor back when I lived in Rochester. Their R&D shop was pretty cool.

[WØTKX]

They are still doing military and test equipment.

[N8YX]

They are still doing military and test equipment.

Good to know. I love my COM-3. :yes:

[XE1/N5AL]

I used to have a COM-3, it was a neat little unit. I think I loaned it to a friend about 25 years ago and never got it back.

[W3WN]

And, they're still astronomically priced, for what they're selling...

I mean, kits can live on. But, they have to be reasonably priced. 20M qrp, CW only kit: $50. Man, I can cobble that together for about $20 in parts, without the volume discount one could get as a larger org.
And that's a RX or TX only, not a full transceiver.

Plus the case.

Considering that the radio kits haven't essentially changed in at least 20 - 25 years, well, I think they simply priced themselves out of the market. And they haven't dropped the prices on the remaining items on Amazon, either.

Others have or will take up the niche. More use of IC's and such, and shipping from overseas with an impossible to read schematic, but the kits are there.

[KG4CGC]

For what they sold for they should have included even the simplest frequency readout. 20 years ago I built the shortwave receiver kit, the active HF/VHF antenna, the 20m receiver, the 10m FM receiver and probably a couple of other things.

EDIT: The FM transmitter so I could listen to MP3s while working in the yard on a simple FM headphone.

[WØTKX]

Ja, that FM transmitter works real good. ;)

[n2ize]

Years ago I picked up one of their 40 meter cw transmitter kits at a Hamfest. Soldered it together one evening and then tested it using a flashlight bulb as a dummy load. Worked great. Then I connected it to an antenna, Inline wattmeter showed it was putting out 1-2 watts rf with a 12 volt supply. Put it on the air and made some nice CW contacts with it over the years. I am sorry to see Ramsey going out of business as they did have some nice kits. Fortunately there are a lot of other kits out there plus tons of free schematics if you don't mind collecting the parts and etching your own board... or point to point wiring.

[W3WN]

Years ago I picked up one of their 40 meter cw transmitter kits at a Hamfest. Soldered it together one evening and then tested it using a flashlight bulb as a dummy load. Worked great. Then I connected it to an antenna, Inline wattmeter showed it was putting out 1-2 watts rf with a 12 volt supply. Put it on the air and made some nice CW contacts with it over the years. I am sorry to see Ramsey going out of business as they did have some nice kits. Fortunately there are a lot of other kits out there plus tons of free schematics if you don't mind collecting the parts and etching your own board... or point to point wiring.Funny thing, within all the rants and insults being tossed around in the Ten Tec thread in the News forum Over Yonder, a particular troll has (essentially) demanded that the new Ten Tec start up the "Ten Kit" product lines again.

KI4JPL pointed out, in a number of replies, that there are some good reasons why that won't happen right away, and why it may never happen.

And yes, I once had the Ramsey 40 meter transmitter & receiver kits. For what they were, they weren't bad. I'm trying to think about what I ended up doing with them; at the time, I was teaching Novice and Tech/Genera Upgrade classes for CCAC Continuing Education, I think I loaned them to a student who never got around to returning them.

[N8YX]

Funny thing, within all the rants and insults being tossed around in the Ten Tec thread in the News forum Over Yonder, a particular troll has (essentially) demanded that the new Ten Tec start up the "Ten Kit" product lines again.

KI4JPL pointed out, in a number of replies, that there are some good reasons why that won't happen right away, and why it may never happen.


What T-T ought to do in terms of kits is to emulate the Snap Circuits approach (Google them. An excellent electronics teaching aid which has its roots in the old Archer "Science Fair" xxx-in-one project kits).

Let's say the enterprising kit builder wants a single-band receiver which uses direct conversion. A tuned front end, VFO, mixer/detector board and an audio board (filtering, AGC, metering, amplification) plus a modular case make up this level of kit. All subassemblies are modular and re-usable.

Let's say the enterprising kit builder now wants multiband coverage. We either design plug-in band modules for the tuned front end (and use them to control the VFO's tuning range via logic switching) or we offer a 1-to-Nth tuned front end board as a replacement for the single band version.

Same with the overall signal flow. Want a superhet instead of a DC receiver? Swap mixer/detector board for something with an LO on one module section and a BFO/product detector on the other.

You give some thought to this approach, standardize the interfaces between modules with regards to signal levels, control methods and so forth and a fairly sophisticated transceiver can be built in this fashion. Or a low power, lightweight, portable rig...the only limits would be left to the end user. Openly publish control and signal protocols and let the community devise their own modules...the possibilities are numerous.

[n2ize]

Funny thing, within all the rants and insults being tossed around in the Ten Tec thread in the News forum Over Yonder, a particular troll has (essentially) demanded that the new Ten Tec start up the "Ten Kit" product lines again.

KI4JPL pointed out, in a number of replies, that there are some good reasons why that won't happen right away, and why it may never happen.

And yes, I once had the Ramsey 40 meter transmitter & receiver kits. For what they were, they weren't bad. I'm trying to think about what I ended up doing with them; at the time, I was teaching Novice and Tech/Genera Upgrade classes for CCAC Continuing Education, I think I loaned them to a student who never got around to returning them.
Well, I guess that student liked them so much that he couldn't bear to part with them :) . I never tried any of their receiver or transceiver kits, just their transmitter which I was quite happy with. And by changing the final output transistor you could easily up the power to around 5 watts. And while Ramsey kits may have been a bit over priced you really paid for the convenience, i.e. all parts, circuit boards, detailed instructions included which made life easier. They were also great for outdoor portable operation on wilderness trips, i.e. toss some wire into a tree, connect up some 12V batteries and see who you can work from the great outdoors.

There was also an issue with Ramsey back during the Clinton era. Apparently they were raided by the Secret Service for selling miniature wireless FM transmitters. I don't know much of the details but from what I gathered it was ridiculous since dozens of other companies sold such wireless devices and anyone can build one from a few scrap parts. In any event Ramsey survived the ordeal.

These days the only large scale kit manufacturer I am aware of is Velleman. I built a few of their kits and all of them worked out great. I built their Geiger Counter kit over a decade ago and it still works great. Also built one of their low power (legal limit) AM Bcast transmitters and a couple of novelty kits, i.e. 4 way traffic signal and Electronic Cricket.

I think Velleman may also make a few ham radio related kits. Then, as I mentioned there are tons of schematics for the do it yourself'er.

[KC2UGV]

What T-T ought to do in terms of kits is to emulate the Snap Circuits approach (Google them. An excellent electronics teaching aid which has its roots in the old Archer "Science Fair" xxx-in-one project kits).

Let's say the enterprising kit builder wants a single-band receiver which uses direct conversion. A tuned front end, VFO, mixer/detector board and an audio board (filtering, AGC, metering, amplification) plus a modular case make up this level of kit. All subassemblies are modular and re-usable.

Let's say the enterprising kit builder now wants multiband coverage. We either design plug-in band modules for the tuned front end (and use them to control the VFO's tuning range via logic switching) or we offer a 1-to-Nth tuned front end board as a replacement for the single band version.

Same with the overall signal flow. Want a superhet instead of a DC receiver? Swap mixer/detector board for something with an LO on one module section and a BFO/product detector on the other.

You give some thought to this approach, standardize the interfaces between modules with regards to signal levels, control methods and so forth and a fairly sophisticated transceiver can be built in this fashion. Or a low power, lightweight, portable rig...the only limits would be left to the end user. Openly publish control and signal protocols and let the community devise their own modules...the possibilities are numerous.

Isn't there already a project that has all of these module's schematics complete, and many built units? It would be just a matter of scaling out production. R&D is done already.

Cannot recall the name of the project, but there's schematics for all of the components, and you can build as few, or as many as you want, and they plug into a backplane assembly.

[N8YX]

Isn't there already a project that has all of these module's schematics complete, and many built units? It would be just a matter of scaling out production. R&D is done already.

Cannot recall the name of the project, but there's schematics for all of the components, and you can build as few, or as many as you want, and they plug into a backplane assembly.

If you come across it, stuff a link into the thread. Sounds very interesting.

[KG4CGC]

Did RS sell those, recently?

[XE1/N5AL]

Isn't there already a project that has all of these module's schematics complete, and many built units? It would be just a matter of scaling out production. R&D is done already.

Cannot recall the name of the project, but there's schematics for all of the components, and you can build as few, or as many as you want, and they plug into a backplane assembly.

Are you thinking about the HPSDR, High Performance Software Defined Radio, project ( http://openhpsdr.org/ ) that is sold thru TAPR ( http://www.tapr.org )?

[KC2UGV]

Are you thinking about the HPSDR, High Performance Software Defined Radio, project ( http://openhpsdr.org/ ) that is sold thru TAPR ( http://www.tapr.org )?


That's the one!