Hi.

Just a quick update to let everyone know this is still an ongoing situation. The modules and PCBs should be here within three weeks (the tuners were delayed a little for some reason), and everything else is in hand. The two maxim chips used will be ordered early next week, to arrive at the same time as the PCBs, and the remaining parts are stock items which will be acquired just before the PCBs turn up. I want to minimise the length of time stock is sitting around, especially since the components paid for in dollars are changing in value pretty fast at the moment!

On this matter, I have been looking at the cost to our "american cousins" (all my cousins are british, which is a pity. If they were american, they'd be further away), and since the exchange rate has shot up recently, the original $160 is now over $170 and still going up!

Now, obviously this isn't ideal, at least from your point of view. There is a limited amount I can do about it, but one thing is that since the tuner modules are being bought in US$ as well, I may be able to negotiate a lower price on them and use this to offset the change in rates. I'll try to keep it down as much as possible.

In addition, I'm now thinking it might be best, after the 5 or 6 boards in the alpha-test group have gone out, to do batches of 50 tuners instead of 25. I'd like to be able to buy larger amount of parts to get the cost down and shorten the delivery time, but obviously there are limits to what's feasible. Well, we'll see what happens.

pca