The cupboard was bare, and I needed a stock of real IRF510's. The BoJack IRF510's available at Lauren Bezos OM's shop are already smoked even before you put them in a circuit. So, a trip to Digi Key where I nearly had Cardiac Arrest.
They have real IRF510's at $0.96 cents apiece in quantities of less than 50 pieces. That looks OK. In ordering 10 pieces the total bill was just shy of $20. A mental add up suggested that was too high by a couple of bucks. Yep, old what is his name Tariff added a 20% lug to the bill, or about $1.92. Translated across the new 20M Hybrid Wireless suggests a 20% or more increase to anything bought for the project.
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So, tell me why tariffs are a good thing? The idea of buy American is certainly a wave the flag issue. But to what is his name, no American manufacturer is about to start up an IRF510 product line and if they did the unit cost without a tariff would be closer to $2.50 versus $0.96. So, the American manufacturers simply pass on that idea as $2.50 versus $1.16 (with a tariff of 20%) is not competitive.
Thus, we get squeezed with the higher tariff, no buy American source is developed, where the foreign competition still is the winner, and the tariff ends up in somebody's pocket.
This is not good for us and yet more than 50% of voters chose this path. Today the excuse well I didn't realize that holds no water!
Some progress on Programming the ESP32 for the 20M Hybrid Wireless as shown below. I have coded the sideband select and it compiles but I need to actually wire in the switch for USB LSB selection.
First Prototype 20M Display
Them that know can make things go.
73's
Pete N6QW