The current situation has been exploited by various scammers who try to sell fake components or parts that have probably been discarded by the manufacturer during their output inspection. For these reasons, RACOM has been forced to implement new entry inspection processes. Supplies from unverified sources have to be carefully controlled at a huge additional cost because we have encountered some incredible cases…

Fake components, where a case from another part is used, the original marking is sanded off and replaced with another, can be detected quite easily using a microscope. Harder to detect at first glance is an original part that has been discarded from production. Here we have to use a 3D X-ray and look inside.

In the photo gallery we show you one example for all. Here you can see how someone has invested their efforts and stacked parts from different production batches (the last letter differs in the designation) into the reel. A manufacturer would never do that. The next photo is from a 3D x-ray. Bonds or their inter-connections are missing in the most of the parts, see the markings on the photo. To confuse the buyer, the first hundred or so parts on the reel were perfectly fine.

So, it is not enough to check only samples before receiving delivery of a larger quantity. This again makes the whole process longer and more expensive. In many cases, we have to check every single component, otherwise there is a risk that the whole of the assembled boards will be degraded or, in a worse case, the defect or instability will only become evident after the product has been deployed with the customer.

Thanks to the experience and enormous efforts of our staff, we are able to detect all fraud attempts and our production continues to run smoothly at 100% quality. We apologize in advance for any potential delays, but you can see from the above examples that serious manufacturers have it tough today.

RACOM together with our long-term partner in Mexico, Solstand, who are a traditional supplier of radio modems to CFE since 2012, have up to now deployed more than 8,000 RipEX radio modems at CFE.

Thankfully our partners were successful in the last tender also, and we are supplying CFE again. By the way, this confirms that RipEX was undoubtedly designed successfully from a future-proof point of view.

We are proud that despite all the current problems in the market with components and materials, we were able to confirm the delivery of more than 1,100 pcs of RipEX modems to our partners by the end of November, fulfilling a difficult requirement from CFE for short delivery times. We even managed to ship the first 500 units within four weeks from the signing of the contract.

We are sure that CFE will be happy with our delivery this time as well and that our success in Mexico will continue for years to come. We will celebrate 10,000 pcs of RipEX units in CFE network soon.

Shenglu customized their antennas for direct mounting of our RAy full outdoor units. So the installation is easy and straightforward. Antennas are available in all sizes from 30, 60, 90 to 120 cm, all of them in Class 3 category.

As shipping costs are rising, unstable and unpredictable, we have agreed with Shenglu that larger customers and distributors can purchase Shenglu-RAy antennas directly from Shenglu, subject to RACOM’s approval, to skip shipping to RACOM’s warehouse and thus minimize shipping costs.

Feel free to read details about Shenglu-RAy antennas here.

In order to provide the best possible support to our customers and distributors in the region, we have decided to expand our team with a technical support engineer who will be based directly in the region and in the same time zone providing support in local languages.

As of September 2021, the new member of our technical support team is Lorena Gomezjurado Sillman Borges from Brazil. Lorena is originally from Ecuador, is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese and English and has extensive experiences in radio network design.

We do believe that our growth in Latin America will also continue thanks to Lorena!

ISP Futuretec 2021

19.08.2021
OREA Resort Devět Skal Vysočina

Experts argue about what to blame for the current situation of shortages. For electronic components, one cause may be last year’s automotive shutdown, when automotive suppliers responded by cutting back their production in the spring of 2020. To everyone’s amazement, the world economy is recovering faster than expected. Manufacturers are not able to restart their production fast enough and the result is a shortage of chips, semiconductors, plastics, metals and all other components used in electronics. Unfortunately, the situation is not much better in other sectors.

Covid has also had a significant impact on logistics. Empty shipping containers are elsewhere than they should be, and the average cost of shipping a container from China to Europe has risen from USD 1,500 in 2020 to almost USD 10,000 today. The week-long blockage of the Suez Canal delayed 400 ships and the situation is expected to be returning to normal after several months. Incidentally, one of the containers on the Ever Given ship contained transistors for RACOM, which we received a few weeks later.

The situation in air freight is no better. Due to the collapse of tourism, over 90% of the civilian flights carrying 2/3 of the air shipments have been cancelled. Consequently, air freight prices for material are rising to astronomical heights and delivery dates are getting put back.

No one knows for sure why there is no market supply of aluminium, iron, copper and other raw materials. But the fact is, unfortunately, that if you happen to obtain these materials, they cost almost twice as much. One reason for this may be that copper, for example, is mined chiefly in South America, where the Covid situation is not improving, hundreds of thousands of people are sick or in quarantine and mines are operating in limited mode.

Adding to the volatility is the fact that, due to shortages, buyers are demanding parts from several suppliers at the same time, creating the perception that demand is many times greater than supply, thus making prices spiral up further.

When you add to the above logical causes the desire of some parts manufacturers to profit from the situation, you end up with only being able to rely on what you have in your own warehouse. Most of our suppliers have told us practically overnight that they are increasing the price of parts by 10-50%, delivery times have often gone from the contracted 8 weeks to anything from six months to a year, with no guarantees!

All of us at RACOM are doing everything we can to ensure that we do not pass on these problems to our customers. We are increasing our stock of parts and materials, despite increased costs, to maintain our standard delivery times. However, if the situation does not calm down soon, we may also be compelled to raise our current prices. Any price increase will not be for the purpose of greater profits. Yet we must cover rising costs while maintaining the quality and certainty of supply our customers are used to.

We do not want to ring any alarm bells, but we consider it fair to inform you of the situation. For the time being, we have enough material in our warehouse to be able to continue production without interruption.

However, if you want to be sure that we will deliver your products under the same conditions as before, we recommend that you do not delay placing your order.

We are confident that the faltering world economy will soon stabilize, the current problems will pass, and we will truly be back to normal by 2022.

All requirements for state-of-the-art radio modems are implemented in the RipEX2 using 30 years of RACOM experiences in this field. It’s not only about data speed and overall network throughput, but also about a whole new set of requirements brought by the current complex approach to the design of SCADA networks as top security features, advanced IP routing or responsive and intuitive user interface.

The Webinar explained a process of smooth gradual migration to a new generation of radio without any outages, issues or extra hardware cost.

On top of a general description, the participants were offered a real case study based on the successful migration of a medium sized network (100+ sites) in a mission-critical environment of a water utility company in the Czech Republic performing with excellent results.

RACOM also introduced its ‘MR400 return free’ program, when old MR400 units are returned to RACOM. RACOM takes responsibility for the ecological disposal and issue a certificate.

The webinar was originally planned for participants from Europe, so it was scheduled at 10 AM Central European Time. But the topic was so attractive that we finally had about 200 participants from 35 countries around the whole globe. This means that participants from Australia listened to the webinar in the evening and others from Ecuador got up at 3 o’clock in the morning.

For those, who were unable to attend the webinar in real time, the full recording is accessible on RACOM YouTube channel.

We are looking forward to future opportunities for face-to-face meetings with our friends, partners and customers, but until then we will be actively searching for further opportunities to meet you at least digitally. Stay safe!

Employees have a choice of where and how the test is administered but with a commitment to record the results on a new RACOM form established for this purpose. Anyone who does not have a current negative test registered with the company will not gain access to the company premises.

To make the procedure as simple as possible and convenient for staff, RACOM bought tests and set aside a special room at the entrances, where everyone could easily test themselves and record the result in the system. If a positive test is detected, the person will leave the RACOM building immediately and contact their doctor. The test room will, of course, be carefully ventilated and disinfected after they leave.

Wherever possible, home office has been the preferred option. For those who can only perform their work within the RACOM building, FFP2 masks and vitamins are provided by the company for free. FFP2 masks are mandatory for use everywhere within RACOM premises. We also launched a set of helpful internal regulations for safe social interactions, increased focus on hygiene standards and made disinfection available throughout the company premises.

We believe that regular and comprehensive testing in all companies will help to improve the situation and we will soon return to a more normal life.

Stay Safe!

Afterwards, the ‘frost’ tests follow. The unit is switched off and the temperature goes down to –30 °C (–22 °F). After 30 minutes the unit is switched on and it must boot up without any problem within given a time. This switch on/switch off test is repeated 12 times with two-minute breaks in order to be sure the frost unit will always start under low temperature.

The same throughput tests as at normal temperature follow at low temperature.

The last step is to heat up the chamber up to 55 °C (131 °F) and repeat throughput tests again.

The only difference comparing to our standard procedure was to change the minimum temperature to –40 °C (–40 °F) for the ‘frost’ test. Fortunately, it is not a problem for our climatic chamber. Our guys were so eager to see the results that they manage to do the tests for Canadian partner within a couple of days.

It was not a surprise that all units tested passed the tests without any issues, even at –40 °C (–40 °F).

Quality and expertise are integral part of RACOM brand and success of this test shows, that our products routinely exceed its design parameters.

Therefore, if you need to operate RAy links in areas with extremely low temperatures, be certain they can deliver.

Since the terrain for the race is hilly with no direct communication from split time points to the center, two extra repeaters must be built.

The equipment for transmitting split times must be hand carried to the installation points, up very steep slopes of more than 100 altitude meters that could only be climbed sideways on skis or snowshoes. At the top there is then the task of installing the equipment at the top of 30 meter lattice masts; Not easy, especially in windy conditions and such low temperatures!

Despite the challenges and extreme weather conditions, the network was commissioned well within the set deadline and the RipEX radio modems worked well, providing the levels of performance and reliability that our customers have come to expect from all RACOM products.

All split times were successfully relayed providing televiewers perfect information about the progress of the race.

We look forward to the 5 year anniversary of our cooperation at this event next year!