GRE America Inc. Press Release

[n5ims]

Originally Posted by W9RXR

Are you assuming that the serial numbers started at 000001?

Also assuming that they always use the next number for the next unit. Since they include their product numbers as a "trade secret", chances are good that they don't simply number them sequentually since that would make it real easy (as was suggested above) to know how many were made by looking at an early batch's number and a late batch's number.

The serial number may have codes that indicate which line made the unit, which date it was made on (not just that generic date code for the shipment, but that this unit was made on Wednesday at around 1 PM or the like), and perhaps even other data.

The serial number also could be intermixed between products so the product they make today may be numbered 1 - 592 and tomorrow's may be the same product or perhaps another model but use the number range 593 - 1342.

[SquierStrat]

in regards to serial numbers, the first psr 500 i owned, i bought a few months after they came out, and it had a number of something like 001200. the psr 500 i purchased a few months ago has 009050. Assuming gre numbers go in order, thats less then 10,000 scanners in 6 years. Which, in my opinion, seems reasonable. I dont think these things sell NEARLY as well as some people here seem to think.. I have not o nce in my life ever actually MET someone who owns a digital scanner, besides myself.. (that just might be my crowd though)

[RadioDaze]

Originally Posted by rdale

Never. Streams use such a small amount of bandwidth it's not even measurable compared to a single Netflix download.

I am comforted by that, as Verizon has removed my unlimited plan. Do you think that holds true for 4G LTE as well?

[DrWhoVa]

Originally Posted by rdale

All once sentence? Wow... Anyways - your wondering is not correct. A high majority of scanning is not encrypted.



Whoever told you that is wrong.



Whoever told you that is wrong.



Whoever told you that is wrong.



Agreed.

I hate to burst your bubble, but I've been in, and sat in for 4 hrs, in a local dispatch center that runs P25. The dispatcher CAN SHIFT TO ENCRYPTION ON THE FLY with the click of a mouse. There's a little lock button, and as I just said, click the mouse on it, and it's encrypted.

The end user can do that also-it's done in Williamsburg, Va. As you said to the previous poster....

Whoever told you otherwise is wrong.

[KevinC]

Originally Posted by DrWhoVa

I hate to burst your bubble, but I've been in, and sat in for 4 hrs, in a local dispatch center that runs P25. The dispatcher CAN SHIFT TO ENCRYPTION ON THE FLY with the click of a mouse. There's a little lock button, and as I just said, click the mouse on it, and it's encrypted.

The end user can do that also-it's done in Williamsburg, Va. As you said to the previous poster....

Whoever told you otherwise is wrong.

We need to put everything into perspective. If the radios/consoles are already setup for encryption, just "flipping a switch" is possible (it's been that way for years). But if neither is already capable of encryption you can't just flip a switch and magically have encryption.

[kruser]

Originally Posted by SquierStrat

I have not o nce in my life ever actually MET someone who owns a digital scanner, besides myself.. (that just might be my crowd though)

I actually know quite a few in my area that purchased digital models.
I was going to say maybe three others but when I started adding them up in my head, I know of pretty many here that do own digital models.
My result actually amazed me after I added it all up.
I also know many that would love to own one but simply cannot afford them.

[lep]

Originally Posted by Spitfire8520

Well we may not know the number of sales, but it's possible to have a rough idea based number produced by serial numbers.

A long time ago when I was involved wiith an activity where we did NOT want to reveal the number of units in use we used to 'dummy up' the serial numbers on purpose and they were not issued in sequencial order especially to keep people guessing on how many units had been produced and placed in service.

This is a well known, albeit uncommon practice in some circles.

[loumaag]

As interesting as some of the off topic comments are (relating to serial numbers, encryption, streaming, etc.) it really has absolutely nothing to do with GRE America shutting down or restarting. So, I am afraid I am going to have to be wet blanket here and insist that those OT branches cease. Thanks.

[scan1806]

I had a conversation with gre on the phone about these stories, they stated they have a huge amount of inventory of there products in warehouse. they do not believe the prices should increase due to this setback in production, they also stated they would love to see them manufactured in the united states,they assured me that a new facility will be up and running and expect no problem with stock or production in the near future

[rgchristy]

Lou,

Is there any way to create a thread either here or in the GRE Scanners forum that contains just press releases or factual status updates so we don't have to wade through all of this?

Thanks,

Rich C

Originally Posted by loumaag

As interesting as some of the off topic comments are (relating to serial numbers, encryption, streaming, etc.) it really has absolutely nothing to do with GRE America shutting down or restarting. So, I am afraid I am going to have to be wet blanket here and insist that those OT branches cease. Thanks.

[commstar]

I also would like to see a locked thread containing only GRE Press Releases.

Mike

[JnglMassiv]

I'm curious about GRE America's revenue stream. Where is the money to stay open and write updates coming from?
What are these contractual obligations?
What is the relationship between the American and Japanese entities?

Stable manufacturing relationships can take a long time to establish and in the meantime, quality almost always suffers. The margins are already probably pretty thin and this loss of production is just the thing to make a company resort to desperate measures before just giving it all up. How much money can they be making on scanners anyway? Start with a top of the line scanner $500 (MSRP, often further discounted), take away dealer margin, marketing, R&D, manufacturing, licensing (not trivial, I'm sure), post-sale support, insurance, fatcat sales executive salaries (dig at Raj) and there's not much left.

Overall, scanning is a pretty inexpensive hobby to get into (at first anyway, amiright?!), even with the cost of a contemporary digital scanner. A scanner will probably seldom be in the top 10 most sophisticated devices in the house but they seem more expensive since the market is small. That's why I always get a chuckle out of folks moaning about this HUGE outlay for a pretty frivolous thing. They charge, "For a $500 investment that costs $14 to make, they should give away free updates for life and this should be the last radio I ever buy!", as though there's money to be made on free updates or the costs with running such an operation are trivial.

I hope I'm wrong but here's wishing for the best. I suppose you can say I'm pessimistic.

[a388sig2]

Perhaps this is a wonderful opportunity to insource the product and bring manufacturing to the states. I'm sure some government agency somewhere would be willing to throw some tax incentives to open up US manufacturing of these scanners.

[kruser]

Originally Posted by zerg901

Maybe the hobby is going to evolve into 2 guys who home brew scanners in their basement, and 1 million Net listeners.

disregard - off topic

[gmclam]

I find it ironic that many companies who have (moved) manufacturing in/to China have had their intellectual property stolen. Save a few bucks on manufacturing, employ people outside the USA and lose your entire business.

While I understand what is going on here is perhaps not that exact scenario; what does seem to have happened is an unexpected increase in cost doing business in China. Many here have already said it, there are lots of companies/plants available to manufacture consumer electronics like this. I wonder if there is something more to this as it seems like a better business decision would simply be to abandon the plans in China and set up manufacturing elsewhere. At the same time it will likely produce the side positive benefit of having better control over your IP.

[cherubim]

Setting up and operating a manufacturing plant requires considerable planning and capital investment. GRE knows this and is probably considering the viability of contracting a new plant or just packing it in given the gloomy outlook for the scanning market as a whole.

[RonBon]

Safe to say this topic has already been shifted and beaten into the ground.Mostly valid points. I was just coming around to GRE. The only thing to do is wait and see,

Thanks for the update.

[MOONBOOTS]

File: GRE_Announcement_10.23.12.pdfDownload File

Just an FYI, GRECOM is NOT out of business. It is true the factory is shut down due to the Chinese Government redeveloping the land where the factory was located forcing the shutdown of the factory. There will be a new factory setup within 2-3 months producing product and there is MORE than Enough inventory to go around until then as they ramped up production prior to shutdown.



I just received the above updated information today from my GRE America Rep. so that’s it. Just wanted to pass it along so you all know. There has been a lot of false info on the Internet sparked by Wayne (Former Executive) and former employees who were let go for reasons that were not made public.



Anyway, just passing that info along.

[W4ILJ]

Thank you for the update Gary

[zzdiesel]

This is a lot more promising.