Over the years that we have been participating, the MTT-S has become an extremely important event for Pascall Electronics Ltd. and not just as a showcase for our products and expertise.
Just as important, it has become a meeting place for our reps and agents along with our many international customers. They are able to meet us, catch up with old friends, become acquainted with our new products and be briefed on the company’s marketing focus, face to face.
It has become a must do event and we generally book our booth space for the next year during the current exhibition. Our Loyalty Points are jealously guarded to ensure that we are in the higher reaches of the pecking order. This year’s event was originally thought to be a risky decision, but the high level of confirmed delegates and exhibitors has alleviated this concern and we now feel that this year could well turn into the best yet for us.
However, that optimism is tempered a little by the constraints imposed on a European headquartered company such as Pascall, keen to do business in the US. With the controls and restrictions of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), many European companies are finding it difficult to make contact with new US customers. Even for products and services not restrained by ITAR, it will always be easier for US customers to look towards a ‘home source’ rather than risk possibly making a mistake with a ‘foreign’ source, which could land them in trouble with the State Department. This has, of course, made ‘home grown’ competition very difficult to overcome.
Events like the MTT-S do help us to redress the balance by putting us right in front of people who can easily see what we have to offer. The show provides us with the opportunity to explain our products in an open forum without the risk of technical or technological transfers outside of either US law, or UK/European laws being transgressed.
We have been able to lead some customers through the ITAR maze, with the help of organisations such as the Export Group for Aerospace & Defence (EGAD) and the Defence Manufacturers Association (DMA) from the UK. These organisations have very good advice to hand, learned from many years experience in various market areas.
Pascall Electronics has some very good representatives and agents within the Asian geographical area, so by exhibiting at the MTT-S we are, in effect, meeting them half way. We took advice from them on how best to reach the right customer base and the response on attending the event was resoundingly positive. Many of our key target customers will be attending and we look forward to meeting them in our booth.
Looking to the future we believe that one of the key challenges facing the microwaves and RF industry over the coming year will be for US companies to be able to retain their technological lead whilst also maintaining something of an isolationist stance from the rest of the world.
It is now a fact that many European Defence Primes are seeking ‘non US’ sources for their components and sub-systems. This is generally because of the issues that ITAR raises further down the supply line. European Primes already contend with and comply with European laws on exports and end users.
These are quite stringent, but if you then add on any ITAR re-export issues, the risks involved can easily become high enough to make the product non-viable.
We will be interested to see how the scenario pans out, but this year what we want to see are existing and potential customers at our booth in Honolulu. Those who do make it will be able to see our new high performance OCXO, which addresses the most critical applications where ultra-low noise is required and aims to provide the lowest possible phase noise within a compact package. Also on show will be an extensive range of oscillators and oscillator-based sub-systems covering centre frequencies up to 13 GHz.
Come and see us in Booth 542.