New commercial E-Caller ......

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Okanagan: I felt the same way when I read Over Hacked's reply. However aside of his obvious wit was some good info to.
Nothing would please me more than makeing a caller in the U.S. as cheaply as you can over seas. I would pass it on I asure you. Don't give up on that idea.
Spanker
 
Predator Spanker:

I'm new to 'yote hunting. I was going to order a FP but was holding out until my Bushmaster Varminter gets here, supposed to be here Friday. You are right, its kinda silly for me to spend 1200 on a gun 600 on a scope and go cheap on a caller. Even though some folks would say I went cheap on the scope. I might still try and build my own caller just to see if I can do it. If your caller is all its cracked up to be, hopefully I'll get my first 'yote with your caller.

At what wt. does your son wrestle? Don't get so caught up in your business venture that you miss out on his/their activites. He should think about coming to Iowa for college. Not only do we have the Hawkeyes and Cyclones but the BEST DIII colleges are in Iowa too. Wartburg College (Wavwerly)is curreltly raked #1 DIII and Coe College (Cedar Rapids) where my step son wrestles 125 is in the top 20. The real reason my FP is on hold is the trip my wife and I took to San Francisco for a tournament. Her son placed third in a very tough tourney. We didn't dip so far into the savings for me not to buy my Bushmaster and scope though.

Any chance you know a Landis Zimmerman? He is from Ephrata, Diamond Sation Rd. He has a Cletrac/Oliver repair business. Super nice guy.

Anyway, looking forward to your product.

The 'Bonker
 
Bonker: My boy is 12 and 95 lbs. Believe me when I tell you, business doesn't come before family.
I take my son 45 minutes one way 3 nights a week
and stay while he practices for 1-1/2 hour.
One night a week he goes to another midget program. I'm sure you know Saturday is the all day tournaments.
I don't know the fellow you are talking about, but in the summer my son wressels with a mat club called the force in Ephrata and another called team extreme in Lititz which is beside Ephrata.
I appriciate your input and comments.
Most of guys don't have a clue the magnitude of the project that I have undertaken. The Q&A alone have taken a serious amount of my time. I'm not really up on costs of scopes, but $600.00 sounds like you spent plenty.
I beieve you understand my point about the cost and quality. I wish you and your boy the best.

Predator Spanker
 
Landis and I belong to the same Oliver Collectors association (HPOCA). He is, as you probably have figured out, Menonite or Amish. His sect can't use equipment with rubber tires so he uses equipment with tracks and/or steel wheels. He makes alot of the old parts for Cletrac and Oliver tracked equipment. My wife and I were out ther several years ago for the Rough and Tumble Steam Show. Thats my connection to Ephrarta. Zimmerman is to Ephrata as Yoder and Schwartzendruber are to Kalona, Iowa. If I ever get back out there for the show maybe we can hook up.

The 'Bonker
 
Spanker:

I forgot to ask what will your product be called? I saw "Loudmouth" on page 1. Will that be the "Official" name?.

Another one you probably won't be able to give me a firm asnwer to, I've set a goal for the week of Feb 10-16th as my week to start hunting. My gun/scope should be sighted, ammo decided on, plenty of practice, misc. equipment in place and permission obtained from the neighbors to hunt. Do you think you will be shipping prior to the 10th?

The 'Bonker
 
Bonker: I can't make you any promices at this time. Parts are ordered to build 500 callers.
Our mold should be finished this week with the parts being run next week. Things don't always go as planed, I expect mold to need tweeking if you know what I mean. I have been working on keypads for 6 months and they weren't 100%.
Now you see why I ditten't info released on our caller until they were finished.
We are also waiting for templites for the surface mount component assembly machine.
I'll look forward to meeting you if you get out here. Te caller is called the Loudmouth.

Predator Spanker
 
PS-I have been reading all six pages of this post and deciphering and attempting to filter and trying to boil it down. It seems to me as though you admit that this e-caller cannot compete with the sound quality of the WT caller but what your suggesting is that the difference is only what we hear in quality and would make little difference to the approaching predator. You can use a portable CD player to increase the sound quality but cannot bypass the obvious shortcomings of trying to go remote with that setup. Your sound selection isn't the largest library but one can potentially record his or her own sounds and make up for that. If cost wasn't the obvious issue with the WT, what do you feel is the biggest factor to seperate your product from it? Not trying to bust your balls, just curious. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Buckspi: Good questions. The sound quality of any CD or mp3 player is clearer. However the reason we cannot use true mp3 type chips is because of the cost factor. Not only do you have the digital chips, but also the supporting circuitry to contend with. A caller would cost 7-8 hundred dollers to the end user. This is ridiculous!
I don't hunt for mosark the fox or batovin the coyote. I do not feel that levil of sound quality will make a bit of difference to the hunter.
I have proveing this many times.The sound quality is more valued to the hunter than to the predator.
I have called in everything from Moose to fox to Turkey's with our caller. I also own a WT caller, I can truly say it works, but no better than my caller or FP or JS callers. You can put a snapon wrench in the hands of a kid and it dosen't make a mechanic.
Our caller has a selection of features that make our caller more advanced than the WT.
The WT caller is heavy, bulkey and not user friendly. The unit is made with off the shelf amp, speaker, battery and mp3 player. Their sounds, are excelent. You could easily make your own portable system if you want to.
Our caller has a built in speaker the ability to have remote control, removable sound cards, you can plug in a decoy, plug in an outside batt, additional speaker,record your sounds,play outside sound sources. The caller is user friendly
You can also operate our caller with less hassle.
The controls are in a keypad form.
I don't know what else I could say other than I'm a hunter, not just someone selling callers and sounds. This caller was designed for the hunter, not for the guy playing music in his house.
Hope I answered your question to your satisfaction
Predator Spanker
 
Predator Spanker, I have been following along with all of the question/answer topics being posted. I can hear the frustration in your voice at times, having to explain and sometimes defend why you chose to do this, or not to do that. Having spent my share of time going through what I believe you are going through, I thought I would try this on for size: At the time you came up with this idea the romance, (not reality of the idea) went through your head. Design the best caller on the market, make some money, maybe even own a patent etc. You start out to create your passion. So where do I start? well in your head of course that don't cost anything and I can get the most work done there, besides at this point I'm the only one that knows what I want. As the thinking, note taking and sketching progress you convince yourself you can do this. Now you are committed, at least at this point that's what you tell yourself. Once you are convinced nothing more can get done by just thinking about it you set out to look for some outside resources (outside of your head anyway) to help you (you think) build your passion. You research companies who might be able to help, because after all you know what you need. But you soon discover that many of these people are application specific about there products some even to the point of being a little myopic, and of little help to you. Now the reality of it all begins to set in (at this point I will edit out the many frustrations you have felt) you quickly realize you will need to learn more than you ever would of thought about each and every product you are interested in to get this thing off of the ground. Somewhere about here you relize you are still alone in this but you have picked up a couple of people along the way who were willing to help, and were a help. Now comes the check book (and the part where 99.9% of the people call it quits) and now it's time to test yourself about how commited you really are, after all even you don't know this answer. Now that you are writing checks, some of these checks you write will net you no gain, again and again your commitment will be tested, but you continue on. You look for some reassurences through conversation with family and friends and they talk to you about your "passion" only now it's become an obsession, no longer a "passion" and sometimes the things they say sound more like they are trying to appease you rather than help you so once again you are alone but you know they mean well. You continue on to more dead ends meanwhile still trying to do your normal daily activities, driving your son 45 minutes one way for wrestling and thirty minutes of that drive are spent back in the workshop in your head thinking about how to do this or overcome that and it goes on and on. I felt compelled to write this because 99.9% (coincidently the same number who would have checked out by now) of the people who are thinking about your product vs another will never understand the thought you have put into this, so don't become discouraged by this. With that being said here is my email address, freyzone@kdsi.net let me know when I can purchase your caller I'm not concerned about the price, I know it won't be enough. I already know I will be the weak link and I will work on that. hopefully some of the wisdom you have built into your caller will rub off on me.

Good luck and the wisdom to know when you recieve it.
 
Hey Spanker

Your call looks like everything most of us are looking for, it Looks like you have really thought this one out. I do have a couple of concerns. You stated that your sounds come in 8 sound banks is there any chance a person could chose those sounds from your list for a small charge, or will they come as you pick them?. One more question I havent heard much about the remote, will that be available when the first calls come out?, and do you plan to manufacture a decoy for the call or is that something we will have to get on our own?. Thanks for your attention to my questions.
 
I think another factor is, that the caller was not supposed to be exposed to the general public at the time it was. But thanks to Wayne (Predator Spanker) we were allowed to not only keep the posting up, but he agreed to do the Q&A session for you guys. He could easily have asked us to remove the information, but he obviously has a passion for the sport and other hunters!! IMHO!!

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
I've been following along with interest since this thread started. I purchased a Foxpro about 2 weeks before this thread started and I'm happy with it but that doesn't take away any interest from this caller as i'm anxious to see how it works out. Competition is good and the e-caller market has needed this for some time.
My advice to spanker would be to maybe visit this subject only once or twice a week to answer any new questions and then to GET BACK TO WORK on that caller. It's obvious that there are buyers a waitin!
 
Thanks Sam, you touched on many of the issues I had to deal with. You are one of the few that I can say that understands my plight.
One of the worse things, is the fact my income comes from a more physical type of work.
I failed many times and spent thousands on dead ends. I started with a friends uncle who can make anything electronic to a retired electronic engineer who was milking me for everything he could. Had one guy who could make our caller and would do it on weekends and evenings. After a $500.00 deposite two more paments of $500.00 and 8 months, I cut my losses made my promise to that fellow and moved on.
All time added up to an additional 1-1/2 years and $5500.00 thrown away.
I did everything you could imagine until I finally come to the conclusion I had to go to a legitimate electronic development company to design this product. Another $15,000+ and I have what I need. Now comes the houseing. That is another 2 pages, that I will spare you.
All this time I have to fead my family keep a roof over their heads etc.
Alot of hours spent up all night kicking my self in the ass saying I am being unfair to my family spending all this money and worse my quality time, that should be spent with my wife and kids.
I think things,like I wish I never started this project. I think for a second how I grew up without a father and on welfare and hungry all the time.I see my sanity and saveings being drained.
Because I afraid of failure AGAIN I keep all this from my wife for years until I have put my house up as collateral to borrow to build a mold.
This can go on for hours but I will spare you the reading. Thats all for now.
 
Spanker ..I've read through most of posts concerning your "Loud Mouth" caller.
I'm impressed with what you claim it will/can do.
I'm more impressed with your desire to make a dream become a reality.I know your not looking for sympathy or pats on the back, that'll come when you sell your caller, which I think you will.
I also think without a good wife and family that your dream may not have became what it has.I've seen a few sunsets and sunrises so I know what I'm talking about there, especially today.
Thanks for answering all the questions and NOT dodging the bullets.Folks here had legitimate questions and you answered them honestly, I'm sure.Good Luck.
P.M When do you expect to be selling these units and are you going to be offering all the options that will be availiable.
Now I'll go back to lurking and learning from some real sharp Predator Callers.

God Bless Y'all

Gramps
 
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