Hobbico Bankruptcy

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Really? Please explain. When people today think "forefront of digital communications" they think Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Google, Apple, Verizon, Skype, Facetime, etc, not ham radio.

"Ham" Operators can do things you may not realize. You might think of Ham radio as a powerful licensed CB station, there is a bit more to the hobby than that. Many Ham's know quite a lot about digital electronics and communication. Most of the things you listed in your post are internet applications or cell phone apps. Many of those don't work at all when there is a power outage, when the internet is out, or the cell tower is out of range. Ham operators communicate around the world. Ham operators are never out of range. During a disaster, when the power is out, when every other form of communication is broken... Ham operators are busy providing emergency communications. You probably don't know... ham's operators made mobile phone calls - years before cell phone technology. Ham's have been sending/receiving text and pictures before Facebook, Twitter or the internet were around.
 
and Mom and Pop would always screw you at the full retail price.

This is why they are gone. No one wants to pay retail for rocket products. The margins on our product lines are not that great. We don't have the 1300% markups that big box stores have. Estes has allowed their distributors to ruin the market, by selling the products at 40% off to the public, year round. When I buy estes from my distributor, I get 40% so I cannot compete or match the other prices offered, hence my very limited stock of it and planned discontinuation of it.
 
Crap, I just ordered form Tower hobby.

It’s Chapter 11, reorganization, not Chapter 7, liquidation. They will remain in business and attempt to work things out and frankly the only way that will happen is if people continue to shop there. I’d be very surprised if your money is in any danger at all. If anything, they’re under greater pressure to operate more efficiently and forthrightly.


Steve Shannon
 
"Ham" Operators can do things you may not realize. You might think of Ham radio as a powerful licensed CB station, there is a bit more to the hobby than that. Many Ham's know quite a lot about digital electronics and communication. Most of the things you listed in your post are internet applications or cell phone apps. Many of those don't work at all when there is a power outage, when the internet is out, or the cell tower is out of range. Ham operators communicate around the world. Ham operators are never out of range. During a disaster, when the power is out, when every other form of communication is broken... Ham operators are busy providing emergency communications. You probably don't know... ham's operators made mobile phone calls - years before cell phone technology. Ham's have been sending/receiving text and pictures before Facebook, Twitter or the internet were around.

OK, thanks for that background info.
 
LOL, we had a Model 1 with 16k of memory and a cassette drive...you were using the Star Wars version, compared to my cave man version.

I started with a 4K Level I TRS-80 - bought the third one that came to our town (first two went to RS employees). With only 4K RAM and that pared-down BASIC, you had to get REALLY creative and tight in your programming!
 
I started with a 4K Level I TRS-80 - bought the third one that came to our town (first two went to RS employees). With only 4K RAM and that pared-down BASIC, you had to get REALLY creative and tight in your programming!
I had an early CoCo with 4k RAM. Immediately opened it up and hacked it up to 16k. Big time! Within maybe 6 months you could buy a 16k version from the Shack. Probably couldn't hold a single email message.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Rocketry Forum mobile app
 
"Ham" Operators can do things you may not realize. You might think of Ham radio as a powerful licensed CB station, there is a bit more to the hobby than that. Many Ham's know quite a lot about digital electronics and communication. Most of the things you listed in your post are internet applications or cell phone apps. Many of those don't work at all when there is a power outage, when the internet is out, or the cell tower is out of range. Ham operators communicate around the world. Ham operators are never out of range. During a disaster, when the power is out, when every other form of communication is broken... Ham operators are busy providing emergency communications. You probably don't know... ham's operators made mobile phone calls - years before cell phone technology. Ham's have been sending/receiving text and pictures before Facebook, Twitter or the internet were around.

Ditto, I put a simple vertical antenna in my backyard: https://www.qrpkits.com/pac12.html , fired up a radio with 20 watts output and directly communicated with
a person in Oregon while I was in central Illinois. I could have used a car battery for a power source if I had so chosen. I used a NUE-PSK modem but a more
resourceful Ham could use a tablet and a radio. We typed away in real time with no internet required. You say mobile phone calls? How about the old fashioned phone patch? Ham overseas contacted a "local" Ham who dialed up a local phone number and "patched" the overseas party in to their loved one.

In fact, Charles Lindbergh telephoned his mother from Paris, France after his epic flight across the Atlantic. How? The authorities set up a local call to a Ham radio
operator who used Morse Code to send Lindbergh's side to a Ham in the U.S. who then transcribed the message and it was read to his mother over the telephone. She replied and the local Ham sent the reply via Morse to France. Slower yes but it got the job done in 1927. Kurt
 
We are pretty far afield, here, but this is my wheelhouse.

However, it's not just the "learning the tools" as much as learning the mindset. Maybe Word isn't the most critical for kids, but word processing is a basic skill they should know.

I disagree. Writing is the skill. A word processor is a tool for creating legible copy for the typesetter. It is a remedy for bad penmanship when writing business correspondence. It'll pile up an awful stack of words on a page, and it saves paper. It also imposes some severe constraints on how the student thinks.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797614524581

Typing -- sorry -- "keyboarding", OTOH, is something older kids probably should get to practice, since we are apparently stuck with this intentionally-crippled QWERTY button board for a while longer.

I actually buy very little of my "hobby" supplies from Amazon. Most often the prices are just so-so or the seller doesn't stock it.

However, I do most of my hobby related spending online .... It isn't worth the effort to even bother going to a store that is only going to have half of what you need when you can pick up your laptop, tablet, phone, etc., and never leave the house.

Yeah. Me too. Although leaving the house is usually the point. I still like getting out and shopping -- but these days I am mostly walking around second-hand stores looking for stuff to take apart.

It occurs to me that I always fed my hobbies by mail order. The hobby department at Two Guys can't have been as well stocked with stick-and-tissue planes as I imagine it to have been. Our local shop, Allied Hobbies was a small store with a diverse stock -- there could only have been a few rockets hanging on the wall, a few Peck Polymers and SIG kits. But the shop was a gateway to the manufacturers' mail order -- buy a kit, use the enclosed form send away for the catalog.

One thing I think we lose with the demise of the Mom and Pop specialty store -- a thing that google and forums like this don't quite replace -- is the knowledgeable store owner. When I didn't know what I needed, not even enough to name the tool or part I was trying to find, it was pleasant to be questioned by the shopkeeper. For instance, when it turned out I was looking for condenser paper, and the shop didn't sell it, the owner knew where to get it and could have some for me in a week. "Just check back on Wednesday." There is a not-quite-walking-distance Do-It-Best hardware store, with inconvenient hours, that I frequent only because they offer this kind of interaction. "That's a Water-Master tank ball. Let me show you where those are..."

I am also suffering a little dissonance over ordering stuff from Banggood or Aliexpress. I would much rather support a local retailer, even if it means paying a modest mark-up, but the there aren't local vendors for for most of the stuff I am looking for. And the stuff that is locally available is just crazy-cheap direct from the mfg. Price those tangle-free skydiver toys sometime -- that chute is just about a perfect fit for a BT-60 rocket. Its really hard to justify paying a 500% mark-up to order it from Amazon, or the 800% mark-up to get it at the brick-and-mortar.
 
I have one local 'mom & pop' place around me. Been going there since I was.. love the place. I pop in every week-end to see what they have, browse, etc. I have asked them to get me the odd thing; wing pieces for my GP RV-4, landing gear, wheels, etc.. But, the lure of 'online sales' has me. Sales tax in QC is 15.56%. Sales tax from another province is typically 5%. toss in about $10-$15 for shipping, there is a savings. Who do I blame? The government..

As I grew up, there were many more hobby shops in the greater Montreal area. And, as I grew they served me well. One store specialized in R/C planes, and had a wall of kits, a roll of covering, a shelf of glue, and a cabinet of engines. Then we discovered that a local (their) distributor opened their doors to the public, and we soon frequented them, as they were undercutting the others. They had a few things I'd never seen before. LOC kits, Aerotech kits & motors to name two.. this became our go to place, at the expense of the others. They all soon closed shop, moved away, or began to carry other items, other things that weren't of interest to me. As for my R/C parts & pieces, there was one other store. But you had to be a member of their 'club' to get prices that matched an emerging online store. And, they were rude. In one instance, the saleslady (part owner) took someone behind us (in line) to process their order, because they were a potential $1000 sale. We never went back, but heard similar stories.

Enter the 2010's, and online shopping is becoming a 'thing'. My Canadian hobby 'go to' mail order place was a mom & pop shop who saw what was coming, and made mail order their business (They now have about 4-5 stores across the country) I do have one rocketry on-line store in Canada, but their prices are typical MSRP. The only savings I get from them is less sales tax. While I have ordered from the US, and believe me, I've ordered a fair share, I feel I always get raped on customs, duties, and shipping (especially from a certain 'brown' company). But (sigh...) all Canadian buyers are subject to a barrage of US online sales. (And, sadly, while the US sellers will cater to the Canadian dollar, not doing so isn't the end of the world.. And, 'shipping is the receiver's responsibility'..)

Someone saw this, and started a company to receive parcels & post on behalf of Canadian shoppers looking to get the US deals. I can now buy stuff in the US, and have it shipped to a US address, to avoid excessive fees, "that item cannot ship to your location", and any other 'international' headaches. I only have to pay $5 per package. When I cross back into Canada (within 48hrs), I do declare it, and if it's under $50-$80, it's too much work for the border guard to demand taxes, duties, etc.. (If I plan it right, and make it a US vacation (>48hrs), I'm allowed to declare $2000 duty free)

So, I try to support my local hobby shop, and give them as much as I can, but the lure of online sales is too great.
 
Ham radio is NOT "old school". We are at the forefront of digital communications.

Ham's have been sending/receiving text and pictures before Facebook, Twitter or the internet were around.

In fact, Charles Lindbergh telephoned his mother from Paris, France after his epic flight across the Atlantic.

KarlS said ham radio is at the forefront of digital communications (implying the present tense), and you guys are giving examples from 90 years ago?
 
Most of the things you listed in your post are internet applications or cell phone apps. Many of those don't work at all when there is a power outage, when the internet is out, or the cell tower is out of range. Ham operators communicate around the world. Ham operators are never out of range. During a disaster, when the power is out, when every other form of communication is broken... Ham operators are busy providing emergency communications.

(CNN)The phone call from the Red Cross came in late Friday night, just as the full scale of Hurricane Maria's calamity began taking shape.
"We need 50 of your best radio operators to go down to Puerto Rico."
In the days after the worst storm in three generations hit the American island -- and for many more to come -- public electrical, land-line and cellular communication systems showed few signs of life. And radio networks used routinely by police officers, power company workers and other first responder still were down
. https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/27/us/puerto-rico-maria-ham-radio-operators-trnd/index.html

I'm not a HAM, have known and do know some. Do remember this and those from the news,
In the case of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in late August 2005, ham operators managed to quickly get on line and begin relaying calls for help, wrote Gary Krakow for NBC News. They “monitored distress calls and rerouted emergency requests for assistance throughout the U.S. until messages were received by emergency response personnel,” the Bush White House wrote in its post-mortem of the Katrina disaster response.

In the wake of Katrina, the operators who relayed emergency calls to first responders and connected people with lifesaving resources got press attention–and, for the first time ever, some government funding to help maintain and develop their network.

This attention is credited with fostering the resurgence of hams in America, writes T.W. Burger for The Patriot-News. As of 2016, there were over 735,000 licensed ham operators in the United States, according to the ARRL. This surge in membership means the United States actually has more registered amateur radio operators now than at any other point in American history, according to the ARRL.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...rricane-harvey-180964632/#q9tq0Zv6WF7PBpY4.99

VERO BEACH, Fla. — Operators of amateur radios, also known as ham radios, play a vital role in the gathering of information during hurricanes like Irma.

“We take for granted our communications,” said Etta LoPresti, emergency management coordinator for Indian River County.

“But when you have something catastrophic like they do in the Keys and in the west coast of Florida, where you’re not going to have communication, these amateur radio operators take care of things for us.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...emergency-officials-turn-ham-radio/651994001/

"Emory HealthCare is among a growing number of hospital systems to adopt ham radio. Hospital administrators and government officials took a lesson from Hurricane Katrina, which left some Gulf Coast medical centers isolated from the outside world, as landlines and cell towers failed.

When power, phone and Internet services go down, a battery-powered amateur radio and portable antenna can provide that crucial link to the outside world."
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/05/19/ham-radio-old-technology-gets-new-respect.html

As for digital, I have to go playing in Google to find info on things I'm only vaguely aware of. https://hackaday.com/2017/03/24/shut-up-and-say-something-amateur-radio-digital-modes/ and https://www.eham.net/newham/modes

"A great number of exciting new digital operating modes have developed, largely because of the availability of personal computers, soundcards, and advanced software. But amateur digital communication began in earnest in the late 1940's (if you don't count Morse as a digital mode!) when hams worked out techniques of connecting mechanical Teletype keyboard/printers to amateur gear using FSK and AFSK modulation. There are too many different modes to list individually, but here are some of the major ones:"
https://www.arrl.org/digital-data-modes

Exchange Pictures Wordwide Using Amateur Radio
The Beginning
The first steps to transmit pictures used wire to connect transmitter and receiver. As might be expected, initially the transmissions were of single pictures and it was much later that transmissions were of multiple photographs to the stage where we have television.
https://www.wia.org.au/discover/introduction/slowscan/

https://www.arrl.org/image-modes
 
^^This^^

And amateur radio operators participate in the design, construction, control, telemetry on innovative satellites, and communicate via these devices every day. Not your grandpa's ham radio (well, actually, hams have been involved in satellite communications since the 1960's).

Mark
KC9DUU
 
The Estes site is down...........................:-(
 
Wood shop, metal shop (from welding, bending, joining to casting,CNC lathe, mill, plasma and laser cutting and 3D printing), multiple cooking courses, a print shop (silk screen and various printers and cutters)
Cooking class is different from home economics. Home ec not only taught cooking but smart budgeting of a "simple grocery list; savings and multi-use ingredients.

But this thread is way off topic.



Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Rocketry Forum mobile app
 
But this thread is way off topic.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Rocketry Forum mobile app

Just parts of it. <g>

Its also really interesting to see the intersection of hobbies, and what different folks think of as hobbies. I am kind of new here, I find it a surprising mix. If asked to draw a Venn diagram, I probably wouldn't have put rocketry at the intersection of shooting sports and HAM radios and remote control planes. I am not sure what I would have put there.

Its also kind of encouraging to read posts from people who put value on education in the useful arts, even if it is a sort of dejected and dispirited estimation of the current state technical education.
 
It ain't up til I say it's up !

View attachment 336176

Try switching your DNS to use Google or opendns instead of your ISP.

Thanks Marc. I wasn't really to worried about Estes and I don't have a pressing need to visit their website this morning. Sometimes I can't resist pilin' on ! :) I'll just wait for the Internet to sort itself out...

Then I'll pick up my guitar and play...

Just like yesterday...

Then I'll get on my knees and pray...

WE DON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN ! [crashing chords] :grin:
 
Someone at Estes forgot to renew the domain registration. That has been resolved and the domain is registered for the next year.


As to Ham operators being at the digital forefront... I don't know about nowadays, but at the dawn of personal computing in the '70s and '80s, hams were heavily involved in the initial experimentation with personal computing. Possibly because they had the electronics expertise and curiosity. I remember going to the Atlanta Hamfest in the early 80's and half the equipment being sold in the flea market was mini and micro computer related. Of course the major magazines catering to the personal computer industry at the time came from a ham radio guy (Byte, Kilobaud, and 80Micro, from Wayne Green --no relation). In the mid 80's a lot of hams were sending digital data back and forth, setting up the protocols now used by our wi-fi networks.
 
I suspect Estes was one of the cash cows for Hobbico. According to some research I did Estes employs 200 people and has sales of around $34 million. There will be buyers for Estes.

Rocketron
 
TARC tweeted today that 4,600 participants have registered, the highest number since 2006 (shortly before the great recession hit). So for people concerned kids these days don&#8217;t build or do anything, there&#8217;s some data to the contrary.
 
I used to own a hobby store, Union Station, in Union County, NC
Hobbies are a tough business now a days, I sold mostly model trains, but also sold models and rockets.

The biggest complaint I heard about rockets was performing the recovery.
I currently work for a model train manufacturer, it's a constant battle to get younger folks involved, we now have an App so kids can control trains with their phones.
My Astronomy club will shoot off rockets for the kids while waiting for sunset, always a good time :)
 
I suspect Estes was one of the cash cows for Hobbico. According to some research I did Estes employs 200 people and has sales of around $34 million. There will be buyers for Estes.

Rocketron

take these numbers with a grain of salt

At 200 employees for 35m in sales, that would mean about $170,000 sales per employee. That is way too low a figure of sales per employee.

Also, Hobbico reported about 350m in sales. I don't believe Estes was that large compared to the rest of the company.
 
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