New JR DSX12

[Thomas]

I imported an asian Futaba 12fg saving £250, I considered having the firmware converted so it was UK spec as I started to give in to tall the crap but was told by Ripmax not to bother as it was identical in every way to the UK version, this is from the firm who would have made money from me doing so and lost money from me importing in the first place.

I also bought a JR X9303 2.4 from the US a while ago, before I got it I made sure it had a CE mark (although knowing it was worthless), the manual I got also stated it was legal to use in Europe including the UK. I contacted Horizon to quiz them and they told me the mark had been put on in error and I was not to use it but they offered me NO support even though it was their mistake and I had done all that was legally asked of me as a consumer.

MacGregors are making things worse by selling the UK radios at twice the price of the US version, plus they refuse to do any warrantee work on imported stuff. Ripmax on the other hand seem to be happy to with Futaba and OS.

[raptorheli2]

thomas, i think what your saying just verifies what is already know. fasst is the same world wide excet for japan and spektrum...well.....who the hell knows.

cheers

[Thomas]

Maybe as I've not read every comment cos my screen is a litlte blurred, could be the beer though.

FASST rocks, the hardware is just better, and I was a huge JR fan.

[Bruinbear]

Fuel for the fire !

http://homepage1.nifty.com/ishiimoke...htm#JR-??DSX12

Conversion results
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
101,745 Japanese yen = 761.19 British pounds sterling
Exchange rate: 0.007481
Rate valid as of: 24/12/2008



and another .....

http://translate.google.co.uk/transl...%3Den%26sa%3DN

[scallybert]

No those figures are just picked out of thin air I'm afraid.. I was just trying to show how a change in the Yen at the buying end can have a large effect on the end retail price.

Cool.

By contrast, if the money going to the manufacturer is 1/3 of the retail price, even if this doubles due to the exchange rate, it's 'only' going to be a 33% increase in the retail price. ['Only' - but we've already seen 40% increases in some retail prices, and I don't think the exchange rates have halved.]

You're right that they'll go bust if they can't sell the stuff either.. but put yourself in their shoes. Your main product line comes in from the far east and has just pretty much doubled in price over night. If you carry on selling at your current prices you'll be making a loss on every item sold. You're entering a recession and those with disposable income for such luxury goods is shrinking. You have to put your prices up to survive.. but you're going to get crucified by your customers for doing so and you're going to have even less people buying.

There's no point in increasing retail prices above what customers will pay - so you increase prices as much as the customers will tolerate; try and get your supplier to drop their price; and lose the rest on your margin.

At least that's my take.

So far various suppliers seem to believe the customers will take the whole hit...

However if you look at the airline industry, which is pretty much another luxury goods business, there have been a number of the budget tour operators go to the wall recently because they were working on next to no margins. It's all very well discounting away to get a sale but if you're not making any money then you'll soon go to the wall and that will be the end of that.

They're selling a comodity product on the basis of price, with no margin to cut, when they get hit by a supplier (fuel) raising prices in a non-negotiable fashion ?

I think there's a diffenece in that heli manufacturer prices probably *are* negotiable, but, if not, I guess there will be casualties.

I certainly don't feel inclined to swallow a 40% price increase...

[mchristyuk]

Scallybert,

JR have not raised the price of the 12x for the UK market. When the transmitter was announced at the start of the year it was going be around £1000 for the transmitter and receiver.. so the same as the outgoing 10x which I was more than happy to pay.

However since the announcement the Yen price has gone from 210Y to the pound to 133Y. That is pretty much a 60% swing in price.. and funnily enough how much is the 12x now?.. £1699 looks to me around a 60% swing in price on that.

So yes MacGregors have just passed on the full hit of the currency exchange collapse on to the shops and customers.. whether this is right or not or they should have taken more of a hit I don't know.. I am not a fully fledged economist and wouldn't like to guess at what is right and wrong thing to do.

My gut feeling is though that they aren't really bothered about the 12x sales... the 10x was never a massive seller. The money is made on the bread and butter items such as the DSX9, PCM9x, X378.. I don't think they have gone up by the full 60%.

Therefore I think MacGregors have decided to take a hit on the mainstream stuff that sells in a large quantity and taken the stance that those who really want a 12x will cough up whatever it takes.

Cheers

Mark

[ChrisB]

Flying Hobby are selling the 12x for 1220 usd

http://flying-hobby.com/catalog/prod...oducts_id=4003


Run that thru a currency converter and you are talking 820UKP under 900UKP including postage so 800ukp under UK price.

If i wanted one thats where mine would be coming from.

I wonder what Flying Hobby pay for the sets in the first place from JR,obviously must be a lot less than Macgregor it seems.


And talking of the 14mz which i read is worldwide spec

http://www.century-rc.com/ecs/produc...15&kind_id=596


600ukp cheaper than here.



And for comparison the JR 9x is 589usd,same retailer selling same brand.

http://flying-hobby.com/catalog/prod...oducts_id=3856


Compare that with UK prices for the 9x and its similar so why is the 12x so much dearer,same supplier,same importer,same modifications supposedly needed???


To get a 9x into the country would cost around £470 so only a few quid cheaper than a pukker UK one from any retailer,so i wonder why the 12X is 800ukp dearer in comparison.

[mchristyuk]

Raptorheli2,

JR/Spektrum do have different sets for different markets.

In Japan they run DSMJ sets which are frequency hopping like FASST. In the US and the rest of Asia they have the DSM2 sets with a higher power output. In Europe we get sets with lower power output AND additional shielding inside the transmitter itself.

Yes the CE sticker is useless and means nothing. The only way to be sure you have got a "legal" set is to purchase it through the correct channels. Every set made by JR contains a serial number so can be traced to where it was sold to from the factory.

And for those who are making light of the seriousness of the CE/Insurance issue...

Were you in this hobby when a young lad was killed at the Phoenix site a few years back?

He was hit by an out of control plane whilst standing in the pit area(I think it was radio failure of some sorts). The police and CAA impounded everything and the radio gear was sent off for analysis. In this case I believe everything was properly sourced and it was just a very unfortunate accident but that incident destroyed quite a few lives that day. However had the equipment not been UK legal and the insurance hadn't covered the guy he could potentially have been looking at manslaughter charges.

These are lethal "toys" we have under our control and supervision. The law may be an ass and it may force us to shell out more than we really should.. but that's the same with everything in this country. If you're happy potentially endangering everyone around you at the flying site with no form of insurance cover and are happy to loose everything in legal bills.. then carry on.. save your £200 on imports..

I personally couldn't do that and have first hand experience of how dangerous these things are. So now I'm having to carry on saving for another 6 months to get my hands on a 12x.. never know.. the exchange rate may sort itself out by then and it will return to a more sensible price anyway.

Mark

[mchristyuk]

ChrisB,

The price you are showing is obviously less import duty and VAT.. with those added you are up at around £1000 which is what the 12x would have been.

If Flying Hobby bought their stock earlier in the year then they could very easily sell at that price. It will be interesting to see if they are still at that price in a couple months.

Looking at the currency markets the Hong Kong Dollar has stayed pretty stagnent at around 1 HKD = 0.129 USD over the past few years. However as we all know the Pound has come crashing down in value which means all our imports are more expensive.

I can't see Sterling recovering anytime soon so as depressing as it is I think we're going to be paying through the nose for stuff (as if it wasn't expensive enough!) for a while to come..

Anyway.. enough depressing news. Merry Xmas!

Mark

[mchristyuk]

ChrisB,

As I said earlier I believe MacGregor are taking a hit with the currency collapse on their bread and butter sets (PCM9xII) but not the 12x.. which is why it is so much more expensive.

Also I have no idea when they last bought PCM9xII's from JR.. with everybody going to DSX9's and 2.4ghz now it could be the PCM9xII stock is from 6 months ago when the import prices were cheaper for us.. IF they order anymore in the future I would expect to see them go up in price too..

Cheers

Mark

[ChrisB]

Dont think any of it matters having just watched one of the news channels

The IMF reckons UK PLC will be bankrupt in 6 months thanks to our unelected pratt of a leader.But thats a moan for another day.

Merry Xmas.

[mchristyuk]

ChrisB,

Well I think it's time to make the most of the festivities and get very very very "Merry" then!

I know I plan too...

Merry Xmas

Mark

[SRH990]

Not only to Spektrum make specific sets for Europe and the rest of the world, they also make a specific radio for France as the full 2.4ghz spectrum used everywhere else has part of it restricted in France!

At the end of the day, those that can afford and want a DX12 will buy one, for most of us it's an aspirational product so what difference does the price make!

[Drewbags]

Raptorheli2,

And for those who are making light of the seriousness of the CE/Insurance issue...

Were you in this hobby when a young lad was killed at the Phoenix site a few years back?

He was hit by an out of control plane whilst standing in the pit area(I think it was radio failure of some sorts). The police and CAA impounded everything and the radio gear was sent off for analysis. In this case I believe everything was properly sourced and it was just a very unfortunate accident but that incident destroyed quite a few lives that day. However had the equipment not been UK legal and the insurance hadn't covered the guy he could potentially have been looking at manslaughter charges.

These are lethal "toys" we have under our control and supervision. The law may be an ass and it may force us to shell out more than we really should.. but that's the same with everything in this country. If you're happy potentially endangering everyone around you at the flying site with no form of insurance cover and are happy to loose everything in legal bills.. then carry on.. save your £200 on imports..

Mark

I think it is easy to under estimate the ramifications if one was involved in an incident like the above. I fly to Hong Kong 3 times a month and used to get all my JR stuff there, especially when the exchange rate was so good. When I switched to 2.4 I nearly bought a DSX9 there but decided that as I fly 100cc planks and helis it was just too much of a risk. Hopefully it will never happen but god forbid if it does at least my kit will be UK spec.

Went with a module in my PCM9X at the end of the day, don't really need a 12 channel Tx and decided the spend the cost of a DSX9 on a TREX 600

Stuff in HKG is not that much cheaper at the mo with the exchange rate, suspect that FH are selling stuff bought earlier this year. Will depend on the Yen to USD rate as that seems to be what they deal in. Still we do suffer from the clowns that have put us in this mess - I fear it is going to get a lot worse in the months to come. Hopefully the weather will be good and we can take our mind off it by flying!!!

MERRY XMAS

[scallybert]

[12x]So yes MacGregors have just passed on the full hit of the currency exchange collapse on to the shops and customers.. whether this is right or not or they should have taken more of a hit I don't know.. I am not a fully fledged economist and wouldn't like to guess at what is right and wrong thing to do.

My gut feeling is though that they aren't really bothered about the 12x sales... the 10x was never a massive seller. The money is made on the bread and butter items such as the DSX9, PCM9x, X378.. I don't think they have gone up by the full 60%.

Therefore I think MacGregors have decided to take a hit on the mainstream stuff that sells in a large quantity and taken the stance that those who really want a 12x will cough up whatever it takes.

There's sense in their doing that, and it's perfectly legitimate.

What's winding me up is that we seem to be being fed a line by some parties. (And while this thread is about JR/MacGregor, they're not particularly who I have in mind.)

The 'line' being that the trade have to pass on the n% exchange rate hit onto the customer in the form of an n% retail price increase; and that it's something customers just have to accept.

Whereas market economics suggest that everything is negotiable - including retail prices, and the prices retailers and importers pay.

If the latter is the case, then if customers hold out or haggle, the suppliers are likely to find a way to get the prices down.

There was a post, that I've not managed to find again, about exactly this happening in their day job importing machinery from China (IIR).