Howdy all!y i
Scott here in west Texas. I met the nanoVNA at the Midland Amateur Radio Club's annual Christmas party in December, 2019 when a ham I'd never met (Steven, KI5AXQ) showed up with one hoping to get some questions answered about it. He made the mistake of sitting across the table from me during dinner. No one was able to provide the answers he was interested in but since I use a commercial VNA for work I took a look. I was very impressed. Now I have several, one portable and 1 each for my 2 radio shacks. I am testing with our radio engineer at work so that we can recommend them for my fellow communication field techs. We'll see how that works out.
I have a few comments:
1. There appears to be more than 10,000 members in this group.
2. I personally benefit big-time from this group. More so than practically any other forum I'm in!
3. I feel that the co-owners SHOULD NOT PAY ANYTHING for running this group and plan to donate.
4. IF ONLY 10% of the members make a donation of one dollar US, that would be enough money to cover almost 5 years of forum fees.
5. Donating $1 US every 4 or 5 years represents a fantastic bargain for the incredible benefits of this wonderful forum.
6. I feel that this little product has been one of the biggest and most affordable benefits to the radio community in a very long time. It deserves an award or something. I can't praise it enough.
7. I have been able to get 19 friends to purchase and learn to use the nanoVNA since i first saw one in December 2019. Everyone loves analyzing everything! Me too...
QUESTIONS for the Co-Owners:
1. Does GroupsIO offer multi-year discounts? Some outfits let one save money if buying a 2 or 3 or 5-year block for example.
2. If there is a bulk discount, can you specify what options y'all have to choose from?
3. Can y'all start a topic or is there a way to vote by the members on which bulk discount they would like to see the Co-Owners choose (to help them decide to donate)?
4. As a member, I would like to see this forum continue for quite some time. Are there ways we members could help out the Co-Owners besides donations? Sort of let us earn our keep with support.
I have written lots of software in the past and know it takes time and is a labor of love.
Could the Co-Owners host a donation program that pays something to the firmware and software developers. A sort of bonus program for keeping their work moving forward for the benefit of all of us users?
Could the Co-Owners arrange for some type of once-a-month or once-a-quarter video-conference with a user or developer, primarily for training, so we could talk with live people (rather than u-tube) with often-never-answered questions in a list below the video?
Could the Co-Owners arrange for a "super booth" at some hamfests for developers and vendors to expand the userbase, generate sales, host a training session, etc.
These represent my own opinions and no one else's. I have no affiliation with any vendor, co-owner nor software developer. It is my sincere hope that no one finds the content of this post inappropriate nor offensive. My opinions are not intended to influence any purchasing decisions by any other persion. These opinions of my own are not to be construed as any technical analysis or recommendation of this product over any other.
I plan to donate after the Co-Owner(s) reply to the questions above. I hope many others will donate as well, for the benefit of everyone in the forum.
Scott
AD5U
