20 years of history: Resilience

May 1, 2002 12:00 PM, Steve Lemons National Sales Manager Radiofrequency Safety International

As our magazine celebrates its 20th year, Steve Lemons takes a look in the rear-view mirror:

Looking back over the past 20 years, I am still amazed at the resilience of the two-way radio shop. Battered with new, competing technologies and fewer new radio products to promote, the radio shop hangs on. Successful shops that maintain a presence in their markets have engaged the wireless giants and have found ways to work with them. And the experienced technical services that they can provide have been a valuable outsource.

Technical competence and experience may prove to be the key ingredients of successful shops.

Earning a livelihood from radio repairs has been offset with new technologies and the engineering of customer solutions. Whether supplying new data transmission backbones or providing new high-tech security systems, the radio shop has been forced to find ways to generate income besides merely replacing a spent power amplifier transistor.

Another obvious change over past years has been the drastic reduction in competing radio lines. In a market that once included more than a dozen reputable logos (and that now is a market pie with only a few slices), a shop's ability to compete on service alone is more important than ever.

My hat is off to the radio shops that have maintained a strong presence and that have held to the standards of quality and customer service. Over the years, I have learned that the quality of a shop's performance is directly proportional to the shop's longevity.

As an aside, I find myself chuckling every time I run into a young enthusiastic wireless tech who has no memory or knowledge of the “base-and-five” market.

(Lemons was the editor of Communications magazine in 1982 and 1983.

At RSI in Kiowa, KS, he sells the company's professional consulting services and conducts seminars on RF safety and compliance in connection with FCC and OSHA regulations. He can be reached at 620-825-4600 or sl@rfcomply.com.)