Topic: Delaying your decision?

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

From Blitzortung.Org

The shipment of kits and/or boards will make a summer break starting from 11 July. After July 11, for several weeks, no kits or boards are sent, but I try to ship all orders which I receive before July 7!

 Regards,
 Egon

[JonathanW]

A potential participant just received this reply from Egon today...

26. June 2014

Dear potential TOA Lightning detection participants,

welcome to Blitzortung.org.

Due to the huge demand in the last few weeks, we are unfotunately sold
out. Our stock is empty. We are not able to send further kits before our
summer break on July 11. Please check back after the summer break in
Augst, if you are then still interested in our project.

Regards and much fun,
Egon Wanke
DL1YDB

It would appear any new orders at this point will be filled after the break.  I hope the surge in orders included quite a few new North American stations...

Jonathan

[dfroula]

I'm building two more for Canadian board members. They should ship before the break.

Don
WD9DMP

[VE3XCM]

I knew I should have placed an order last week lol

[steel_edges]

I got my order in just under the wire I guess.  Winding my ferrite antennas while waiting for the kit to arrive.  If all goes well there will be a new station in the 'thumb' area of Michigan very soon.

George

[txweather.org]

Crap!

[JonathanW]

Anyone who hasn't ordered yet - please be patient.  Egon is taking a much-earned break from sending out kits (sooner than expected due to demand), and may have some time now to help work on other aspects of the project before actually leaving on summer vacation.

We will still need lots more stations in the U.S., especially since a fair number of the station kits likely went to Europe.  The sudden surge of interest in the last couple of weeks won't change that, and there will still be lots of this year's lightning season left after Egon comes back from his break

[VE3XCM]

Still have lot's of patients, just wished I sent a payment 2 days ago when he said he should have enough kits together to ship before vacation lol

[SLOweather]

There are companies that will handle the kitting for them if they'd just decide to farm it out. If they had one in the US and another in Europe, they could save us a lot of shipping and time, and be able to spend more time on firmware, web server, and new board design.

[JonathanW]

There are companies that will handle the kitting for them if they'd just decide to farm it out. If they had one in the US and another in Europe, they could save us a lot of shipping and time, and be able to spend more time on firmware, web server, and new board design.

I'm pretty sure they've been looking at several options, including providing completed kits.  I do know top priorities for them are 1) keeping costs down and 2) maintaining the non-commercial nature of the project.

[PaulMy]

I'm building two more for Canadian board members. They should ship before the break.

Don
WD9DMP

Keeping fingers crossed

Paul

[Jacquesvw]

I hope I made my payment on time.

[Knickohr]

OK, just another short notice.

Egon has no board on stock. The will order new ones after the summer break.

Thomas

[emulsifide]

I got my order in just under the wire I guess.  Winding my ferrite antennas while waiting for the kit to arrive.  If all goes well there will be a new station in the 'thumb' area of Michigan very soon.

George

I got my order in on the 24th. At that point, Egon was still stating that he'd make a best effort to ship before July 7th. I'll be bringing my station up in Ferndale, Michigan.

[steel_edges]

I got my order in just under the wire I guess.  Winding my ferrite antennas while waiting for the kit to arrive.  If all goes well there will be a new station in the 'thumb' area of Michigan very soon.

George

I got my order in on the 24th. At that point, Egon was still stating that he'd make a best effort to ship before July 7th. I'll be bringing my station up in Ferndale, Michigan.

Very cool, my order was placed in June 18th, completed the ferrite antennas last night.  Just waiting for the rest of the hardware to arrive.

George

[roguk]

I am hoping that no news is good news here.

I ordered my parts on 20th June and have had neither confirmation, nor anything to say the order couldn't be fulfilled.

Fingers crossed!

[Jacquesvw]

I am hoping that no news is good news here.

I ordered my parts on 20th June and have had neither confirmation, nor anything to say the order couldn't be fulfilled.

Fingers crossed!

Same here, but I paid on the 24th.

[JonathanW]

I'm pretty sure the cut off date was closer to the 26th-27th at some point.  That's when people started getting a "sold out" response.

When Egon sent my kit back in May, I didn't get a shipping email, either, but the kit arrived in about a week and a half.  He's a pretty busy guy   Actually, I don't know how he has time to do it all.

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Egon ran out of kit parts much early than he had anticipated. He was faced with unusual demand, and I believe he had enough to fill only the remaining 30 kits he had orders for when he shut down, as those would exhaust supplies... I'd suspect any orders on or after the day he announced are likely to go unfilled. Note that prior to this spring's world wide discovery of Blitzortung, and the media publicity, he might need to ship a kit or two a week... remember,. it's a "hobby"... normally there would not be that big a demand...
Hopefully you folks were in the thirty... If your PayPal has been charged, you're probably getting one! But keep in mind, he may not have had time to fill all those on the 'ship' list.. it takes him a lot of time...
Also, I don't think he generally sends any shipping notice... about all the time he has is fill it, and get to shipper... that may change in the future... most of us have to ask... but I'd wait another week minimum,. if PayPal has charged... before I bothered him...
Usually takes 10-18 days to get a shipment... depending...

What may be 'tragic' about this, is, I've got a feeling that many of the kits may be going to 'casual curiosity' folks, and not 'serious' folks... no insult intended to anyone, but many may not realize what they have hold of... and the kits are botched, or even left un-built. I'd hope to be wrong!....there's no simple way to 'qualify' folks, and it would be wrong to do so in many respects... besides, who knows where 'casual curiosity' may lead?... I actually joined and ordered because of curiosity, though it was more than 'casual'... I wanted a challenge, and to be in on the 'ground floor' of something.... and it's exceeded my wildest thought...

Meantime, welcome to each and every hopeful!  I think I've had about as much fun and education results from this project as anything I've done in my 67 years! Especially harassing and being harassed by folks like Don F, Greg H,  Jumpin' Joe and many others.
(Ha! Donnie F.. still in second place, I see...Class shows, don't it?  )

For you folks waiting 'till the hiatus halts'... Go read all the threads, take in the experience... read the threads on BO... you'll be ready when kits are available, and you can officially join this bunch of Blitzors...   and we 'older timers' won't have to help so much... 

[Dr Obbins]

Meantime, welcome to each and every hopeful!  I think I've had about as much fun and education results from this project as anything I've done in my 67 years! Especially harassing and being harassed by folks like Don F, Greg H,  Jumpin' Joe and many others.
(Ha! Donnie F.. still in second place, I see...Class shows, don't it?  )

Hey Cutty, You may currently be on top in the EL range, but who is contributing the most overall (EL+EM) by over 20%? 

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Damn, Newbies...

Meantime, welcome to each and every hopeful!  I think I've had about as much fun and education results from this project as anything I've done in my 67 years! Especially harassing and being harassed by folks like Don F, Greg H,  Jumpin' Joe and many others.
(Ha! Donnie F.. still in second place, I see...Class shows, don't it?  )

Hey Cutty, You may currently be on top in the EL range, but who is contributing the most overall (EL+EM) by over 20%? 

[dfroula]

(Ha! Donnie F.. still in second place, I see...Class shows, don't it?  )

Well, you DO have that silly 50mm on me! 

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

(Ha! Donnie F.. still in second place, I see...Class shows, don't it?  )

Well, you DO have that silly 50mm on me! 

You're dang right, I Do !

[miraculon]

I got my order in just under the wire I guess.  Winding my ferrite antennas while waiting for the kit to arrive.  If all goes well there will be a new station in the 'thumb' area of Michigan very soon.

George

That will be great. I was living in Livonia (near Detroit) until we moved up north to Rogers City. The Thumb will be a good location. There is a guy with a Boltek at Sand Point near Caseville that I check every so often, but that doesn't help Blitzortung.


Greg H.

[SlowModem]

The Thumb will be a good location. There is a guy with a Boltek at Sand Point near Caseville that I check every so often, but that doesn't help Blitzortung.

I had to take my wife to clean out her grandparent's house in Caseville.  We stayed in Bad Axe.  Nice area up there (in August).