Originally Posted by
Ken Erickson
Is there maybe any indication of an impact in the new pricing Tower has for Futaba receivers?
Tower has been discounting Futaba off and on for about two years now. Just for fun I checked a couple of Hong Kong vendors and Towers price for Two popular Futaba transmitters, it was acouple of years ago so I don't recall the specifics. Anyway, with free shipping the prices were 30 to 40 dollars less from Tower plus the fact that it would ship in just a couple of days instead of weaks and Tower offers real live customer service.
It is interesting that the Chinese have been manufacturing most of the RC hobby stuff for years but have not sold any of the high end stuff out of China. The Orange six channel transmitter is clearly a knockoff of the Spektrum DX6i but it uses cheaper components like the gimbals. I know a guy who bought one and the display went out two weeks after he got it. The typical goat rodeo of "send pictures of it not working and we will decide if we will send you another one" ensued so he threw it away and bought a DX6i that still works by the way.
I really don't see China having any more of an impact on the US hobby market in terms of direct sales than they already have, which is not really that much.