I have been working on producing t-shirts, polo shirts, sweatshirts and fleeces for SOTA and hopefully should be able to put some news on this reflector in mid-May. Hopefully we will be able to sell these at a sensible price, certainly not at the level that has been quoted elsewhere on this reflector!
Options will probably be either screen printed or embroidered on a selection of colour shirts.
I notice that there is a comment higher up this thread about flags - my business deals with a flag maker and they will produce custom designs - is there genuine interest?
The problem is they fade quickly and tend to also crack with washing whatever >they tell you in the write up above.
I shall bow to your vast experience Steve. When I get home I’ll throw the items I have in the bin. The fact they are in the same condition as new despite 2 years worth of wearing and washing without special treatment doesn’t matter. They’re overpriced tat printed by junior and ironed by mum.
However, mum must be busy because they shipped over 1 million items last year.
We’ll have none of this nonesense talk of ironing tee shirts here Andy! You might start a trend.
In reply to GM4TOE:
I checked my email records Barry and it was back in March 2006 when the idea of flags was raised. Prices were obtained for a small quantity of 30cm x 30cm double sided, though some comment was made that this was a little large. They were fairly expensive for small quantities and I seem to recall the level of interest at that time was no more than 20 - 30 in the UK and Germany.
Okay Andy, just because I think they will be overpriced tat printed by junior and ironed by mum doesn’t mean they are. Please don’t throw them in the bin. I take your word they are okay. I wasn’t bating the troll hook but maybe we snared each other here.
I am basing my judgement on the fact that I have got silk screened tee-shirts from 30 years ago that are still wearable or at least they would be if I lost four or five stones. Usually bought at rock concerts at stupidly high prices or at the IOM TT races. I have had loads of iron on type ones and they did not last and were binned ages ago. So I therefore would not be inclined to buy without seeing a sample. It may be that your small logo is why they have lasted so well or maybe they use a better quality ink. The SOTA shirt I have now is still good after four years and was silk screen printed on to a Fruit of the Loom shirt so something similar would be my preference.
The shirts Tim mentions are ultimately suitable for SOTA due to the wicking properties. So even if they are more expensive they seem like a good idea.
For my version of the SOTA logo that is fairly good blown up to 27"x27" (my monitor times two)or even better smallr right click and ‘save as’ on it at sota - gw7aav2 this might be better than the small official logo you have on yours Andy. Then if you can get it to accept green as the shirt colour I will give one a try but I will save my bulk order to see what Barry and Tim come up with.
For flags the iron-on self printed transfers are fine as you don’t tend to wash them. Bigger flags can be done on multiple A4 sheets quite successfully. I might design one to use the transfers I have up.
My club (the Hall of Science Amateur Radio Club) uses cafepress.com which is great as we do not have to worry about anything, stock & orders are all automatic and taken care of by the cafepress guys. Cafepress has very low prices and then the club can tack on anything it wants to or zero to the price with the tack on going straight to the club.
Cafepress.com makes a whole bunch of stuff, from mugs to shirts, mousepads…everything.
As it does not cost anything to put stuff on cafepress.com, I was a bit surprised SOTA did not have anything up there yet…all it would take is for someone to upload the SOTA seal…
HFpack already has perhaps 100 different items for sale there…check it out:
In reply to N2YTF:
Hi Tom,
SOTA did use Cafepress.com at one time, I still have a mug somewhere. But it was was very little used, if at all. There wasn’t so many SOTA participants though in those days.
Hope to work you sometime next weekend!
73
Roger MW0IDX
In reply to All:
The shirts that I referred to above in an earlier post arrived this week, so I took a photo of the end result and posted on Flickr in the SOTA groups. Unfortunately the thread of the badge is very shiny, reflects the light and so does not photo very well. I ordered two but got three as one snagged in the machine so Bill just included it rather that throw it away. A little attention with a needle and thread fixed that. The badge appears to me quite similar to Steve’s simplified logo.
73
jim
After asking Tom at Norbreck, who advised the same as he mentioned in this thread,I decided that so long as we used the official Sota emblem as used on the car stickers we could do our own. I did not see any wrong in asking my local T.shirt printer to do me a couple to see what they looked like.
They just asked me for a Jpeg file on a disc and done Two white ones with the logo and my callsign on the left breast,big enough to see.
Elaine has agreed they are of enough quality in white with the logo on,she has allowed me to take one with me on our Honeymoon in May. I hope to bump in to some fellow Italian Sota Members by wearing it at least one day while on Lake Garda.
£5.95 each and the material looks like it will last a good few washes??
just an idea, still feel I would like to buy other stuff such as a Mug or two and a mouse mat etc!!!???
The Logo on your shirt looks much better than the one on Tintagelcraft’s web page http://www.tintagelcrafts.co.uk/sotabadge.htm , maybe Bill was reading my moans about it not being quite right. I will have to pay him a visit next time I visit my Aunt who lives in Tintagel and put an order in for a couple.