I've stepped aside from the day to day business of Alpha and am focusing on the things I love the most - engineering and product development.  I've handed the reins over to Joe and as a local Colorado(an), he's there every day - which was something I just couldn't swing.  So, full time management for a growing company.  We ended 2012 at the highest Revenue level that Alpha has ever seen, and we're still growing, adding to the product line, and planning new projects.  I'm more excited about the possibilities here at Alpha than ever before.

We've been, and continue to be a company that wants to delight our customers.  To the customers we've delighted, we're proud to serve you. 

In a different part of the newsletter we'll update you on the DreamTuner. 

Welcome aboard Joe - it's great to have you with us and get back to work getting that tuner out. 

  

All the best to our ham friends,  

Good afternoon all!

My name is Joe Jurneke, and I am the new CEO for RF Concepts.  One of my initial focuses is to tie up all the loose ends on the DreamTuner.  I've seen this thing run - my opinion is that is is a terrific product, with many outstanding features the community really would like. Personally, I cannot wait to get my own 4040. I wish it were today!

Many folks have expressed concern over the delay. The design and validation process we are using dictates a significant amount of rigor. The tuner is a very complex device both in hardware and software. There really is no equivalent product in the marketplace today. We will not release the product for production until we are satisfied that it will perform as advertised. That means, as long as we find bugs in software, hardware, user friendliness, etc, it will not ship. It is imperative we launch clean. Our goal and commitment to the community is to ship a stellar product right from initial launch. 

There are two Phases to the Beta testing process. We are in the first phase now. We have 5 systems built and being evaluated as we speak. These systems are being tortured by the beta test team. Shortly, we will release another 5 systems to the beta test community. Once we complete the rigor in evaluating the performance, we will begin shipping the tuner in production volumes.

I have had the opportunity to discuss this with several folks on the waiting list. I have explained exactly this, and every one of the folks I spoke to has agreed they want to receive a product that will delight them from the very moment it is removed from the box. That is our plan with the new tuner - nothing gets shipped until we have high confidence in its ability to perform flawlessly...

I truly appreciate the frustration surrounding the delay. Rest assured we are working to get to market just as quickly as we possibly can, while maintaining the integrity of our commitments to our valued customers and clients.

Yes, we will keep the community appraised of progress on a regular basis. By all means, please don't hesitate to call us if you have questions or concerns....

Best regards,

Joe
WB0PJZ  

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Mike

  

The auto tune function is operational, but not optimized. The tuner takes a bit longer than we want it to, so we are working to improve the tune time. We are still verifying that tuner is fully capable over the entire 20:1 SWR circle on all bands. By the way, the bypass mode (passes RF from the input through the switches to one of 5 output ports) sports an SWR much less than 1.3:1 at 6 meters - so the operator can pass RF at 6 meters through the tuner to a desired antenna without concern over additional losses.

  

The Roller inductor and Vacuum Variable Capacitors have demonstrated very good life performance. For weeks, we ran the components from one end to the other continuously, with stops and "back hitches" along the way verifying that they met the life goals outlined for the components. Similarly, RF switch reliability tests ran for weeks gathering data on performance. Thus far, we have not required changes to these components relative to life expectancy. To further torture the switches, we ran the reliability test while switching hot about six amps of DC current. DC is more of a torture test than AC. With DC, once a plasma field is established, it is difficult to extinguish, hence the heating is much more severe. With AC fields, the Plasma is extinguished at the zero crossing of every cycle. That said we do not want the tuner operated normally in a mode of "hot switching." This was done as a method to accelerate failures so we can see the effects as early as possible. All told, the RF deck is looking pretty good right now.

  

We have five systems in the beta test environment right now. Another five are nearly completely assembled and ready to go to test. Once we have all tuner functions verified, are capable of properly tuning the 20:1 SWR circle without error or manual intervention, and have demonstrated a fundamental level of reliability, we will be ready to roll out the next five test systems to Beta test community.

  

The initial five beta sites are also our firmware regression test sites. All software releases will be evaluated by this team prior to release to the second group of five test sites, and ultimately to the general public.

  

When will we release the tuner for production build? I would love to tell you it is next week - but I cannot. The tuner will not release until our Beta test plan is complete, and we are confident that it will perform properly for our client base. One question that always come us is "Why can you not give us a date?" The answer is a complex one. Software changes can occur quickly once the problems are understood. Hardware changes can take up to 6 weeks to implement once identified and corrected. We all hope there will be few if any hardware issues identified in Beta, but it has been known to happen. Case and point - we ran into hardware problems last fall - it took us about 3 months to recover from that set of issues. Another issue with defining a date is simply this: If I give you a date and we miss it - it ruins our credibility, and disappoints our customers. I do not want to disappoint our customers anymore than they have already been disappointed. Rest assured we have folks working evenings, weekends, and pretty much everything in between to get the tuner complete and ready to ship. It is a complex product, with many modes of operation, and we have to properly evaluate every one along with combinations of radios, resistive and reactive loads, power levels, you name it and we have to test it. That said I do not feel it will be too much longer before we are ready to ship. Hang in there - we will keep you up to date as the project progresses.

  

Best regards,