Friday, Mar 14, 2008 at 00:49
"Really!? Those of us who have worked in the electronics design field for some years will be surprised to hear that."
Come on Mike, give us your resume with HF RF comms.
Just how many reasonably high powered HF transmitters have you designed? Or even built? Or even serviced?
"When my 857D was one week old I managed to drop it from 4' onto a stone tiled floor :( Two years later it's still working fine.)...
and this equates to mil spec standards for vibration and dust ingress etc does it ?
"The major multinationals don't spend millions of dollars designing a (semi) mass product only to have it fail after a bit of vibration."
Err,,,WHAT major multinationals, HAM radio manufacturers? A BIT of vibration eh ? Ho ho ho. People who manufacture radios to a price and not a standard?
People whose idea of service is to get you to return the radio to Japan?
How many TS520's are still around, except as boat anchors? Early model Barrett and Codans are still in use on many cattle stations every day.
"requires very little different in the transmitter design than modern Amateur sets provide"
Oh really ? Perhaps it's that "very little in transmitter design" that makes the difference?
Ever seen the output of both side by side on spec analyzers as you wind the supply voltage down?
Ever tried the selcall function of a modern amateur set? You will need it in an emergency by the way.
Ever found one off channel?
How many actually come with a high stab oscillator as standard ?
Ever had the knobs disintegrate?
What about the connectors ?
What about the SWR protection circuitry? In some cases it's not great, is it? How many finals have you replaced from components that are under rated because they're cheaper?
How about inadequate heat sinking in high temperatures, what happens if that cheap fan fails?
How much water and dust does the case design actually keep out?
How
well does the case (or anything else) last in a hostile environment?
Still dazzled by all that radio that you can get for so much less?
Then why isn't the Icom FC 7000 being bought by commercial, Govt, NGO's and the UN organizations ? It's type approved. And so much cheaper.
Amateur radio auto tunes...you can't be serious! Go and drown one a few times, whack it with a few branches, bounce it up and down in the heat and dust or perhaps salt air at 80% humidity, then do it every day and make it last 15 years.
And as for ham radios being used on commercial frequencies, how would you like it if it were the other way around ?
Happy to see everyone talk where and when they like, especially on the largely unused (many times) portions of the amateur bands are you ? I mean if everyone bought ham radios instead of commercial ones then we'd all be talking over the top of you.
It's called spectrum anarchy, isn't it ?
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