Building the cables for my EchoLink project was, to put it bluntly, a royal pain. To build these cables, I had to find sources for the connectors–including a semi-oddball 8-pin mike connector for my Icom–and then wire it all up. The wiring wasn’t a real problem, but running around for the plugs was a hassle.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a website that not only carried the connectors, but would also build the cables for you? Being a website developer, I got to thinking about how to go about doing this. It shouldn’t be too difficult to write a web application that would let a ham choose the connectors he or she wants, the type of wire that the cable will use, and then specify the wire list for the cable.
Once the ham has entered that info, the website would calculate a price based on the cost of the connectors and an estimate of how long it would take to actually build the cable and give the ham a quote. The ham could then proceed to a checkout screen, where he or she could input a credit card number.
Once the card has been verified, the website would transmit the information to someone who would actually build and ship the cable. I suppose I could also program the website to ship kits to hams that don’t want to pay for the cable assembly. That would save them a few bucks, yet provide an easy way to purchase the cable and connectors they need.
So, what do you all think? Is this a service you might find yourself using? Or, is there perhaps a service like that out there already?
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