Recently we were re-ordering 270 foot twine reels and ran into the problem that is gripping many businesses. Lack of supply and/or high prices. Rather than raise the selling price to inappropriate levels we have marked these reels out of stock until we can again find them for a reasonable price. We do have a good inventory of Drill Twine reels that are especially convenient with a small battery powered drill, but can also be used by hand.

Pacificon 2021 is scheduled, hopefully it will go forward and we’ll be there at the Flea Market as usual. Hope to see you all there. I’ll bring launcher supplies and show the prototype I’m working on. We also usually have some “seconds”, slightly blemished parts that sell at steep discounts. Let me know well in advance if you need anything specific.

Planning for Quartzfest 2022 is underway, and we hope to be there as well. What presentations would you be interested in? Last time we did one on 3d design with OpenSCAD, one on Antenna Launchers, and one on DIY and Commercial Ebikes for RVers.

I continue to make launchers and ship orders as we work on the backlog. Thanks for your patience. Today I did a minor overhaul on the 3d printer that makes many of the parts for the launchers, and now I’m doing a test run of a Mini Coaxial reel that takes 9 hours to complete. That printer has printed many dozens of reels of filament, I’m expecting to do a complete overhaul at some point, and another printer is waiting to be assembled when we are ready. There’s a partially completed CSV19 on the workbench, one package ready to go out and another order waiting to be packed and labelled.

73 de Alan, w6akb

June seemed to rush by, we shipped some orders and then took a couple of weeks off for Field Day. We had a good Field Day and did some testing of a new Launcher design. In July we started up Launcher production again and are chewing through the order backlog and dealing with materials shortages. Thanks for your patience!

— Alan, w6akb