From: "Michael A. Terrell" on Thurs,May 12 2005 10:16 am

wrote:

From: "Michael A. Terrell" on Wed,May 11 2005 9:50 am

Way to go! :-)

As far as "John Smith" goes, he's gone. He is just another
hopeless
wanabee who doesn't understand anything about the real world.

Tsk, he's a poseur, an imitator, a wannabe who needs a
"rep." :-)


Len, I have worked from DC to 11 GHz on commercial designs and
anyone
that thinks any design is easy just doesn't have any idea what's
involved.

A problem in discussing things in diverse groups is
that the vast majority does NOT have such experience.

[there's a short pause while a few regulars become
overheated with indignation... :-) ]

The vast majority get their "experience" from READING
about it - AFTER all the development fuss and fury has
been done. If the writers and editors are good at words,
they create the fantasy that the reader has been there
"too." [there's a whole lot of 20-20 hindsight going
on with those readers]

Its one thing to hack together an almost working prototype,
but its a whole different animal to design from the bottom up to meet
set specifications, make sure the components will be available, and if
the unit is to be sold, to make sure that it will clear the FCC, UL
and
other requirements. If you decide to manufacture the equipment for
sale
outside of the US you have the CE certification, and ISO 900X to deal
with.

You said it, brother! :-) The PR splashes and articles
in QST just do NOT go into days, weeks, months, week-
ends, deferred days off, sweaty times on the bench
with "stubborn" things (finding out little annoying
things one might have forgotten to include) or finding
that a component is NOT in tolerance, "fix" days in
having to work around a problem caused by someone ELSE
not doing their job quite correctly and being stuck
with finding the cure. Neither does it include some
total fascination in seeing a creation come to LIFE,
bit by bit and working AS designed, the pride in one's
self for having done so (a quite kind, most
satisfactory, adding one more mark on self-confidence).
It is a satisfaction in having been given an arduous
responsibility and achieving success in meeting it.
Besides, it can be fun! :-)


It would be interesting to set up a group to develop a modular
system, but getting people to agree on the specs can be more work than
the actual design.

Actually, in this rather lengthy thread, which has no
real consequence to hobby electronics, there really
wasn't any "need" to "develop a radio specification."
It was a mild rant by an anony-mouse who hasn't been
there in real life and wanted to become some kind of
newsgroup age Keroac a la four decade old "protest"
movement.

"Putting together specifications" has been done for
centuries. It is never easy because too many chafe
at "being told what to do" or expect that every spec
is "perfect, something that must be adhered to at all
costs!" Those kinds of critics haven't had to BE
there, working it out daily, weekly, monthly in a
sea of contentious differing-opinion souls all of
whom consider themselves "right." :-)

I doubt (sincerely) that there's any NEED to have
"a radio" modular. The 'radio" already has been a
system built of modular circuit blocks for decades.
All those blocks have to work together to make the
"radio" work and the "radio" designer's task is to
integrate those modules, make them work together.
[replace "radio" with "any electronics" and the
same thing is true]

What seems to be operative in this thread is that
some look at a PC and its very-mass production
"module" pricing and the "plug-and-play" concept
and sales phrase popularized by Microsoft and think
it applies to all electronics. It doesn't. Those
same imaginerers probably would get totally lost
in trying to figure out how a "simple" plug-in card
on a PC works; all such cards nowadays are little
subsystems, complex, a few being little "computers"
all by themselves (if using a microcontroller).
They only look at the overall card specifications
and THINK they "know all about it." [all they've
done is to memorize some data items about the
product...well after the development tasks' end]

Three decades ago, radio amateurs got a taste of
"radio modules" in the burgeoning use of handheld
transceivers. A single Tx-Rx that could be held
in one hand, complete with antenna. A full radio.
(first done about 1940 for the U.S. Army and
dubbed "the handie-talkie") One "module."
A stand-alone communications tool. "Integration"
of that module didn't need other electronics.

Now with Software-Defined Radios, non-thinkers
want to make those like the millions of cheap
personal computers. Most don't know the basics
of either receiving or transmitting radio signals
or how to handle modulation, yet they want to talk
AS IF they did. :-)

[more righteous indignation by some readers here
as they chafe at the bit wanting to vent against
the statement above...heh heh]

SDR is a terrible problem for the FCC in its task
of regulating technical characteristics of civil
radios...and will be for all other radio regulating
agencies internationally in the immediate future.
A very different problem.

The thing is that SDR is ALREADY HERE and has been
for decades...BEFORE the advent of the micro-
processor and microcontroller. [that's a whole
new area of discussion whose birth might have
been in the transition of the regnerative receiver
with audio amplifier into Ed Armstrong's "super-
heterodyne" right after World War One] That the
modern "radios" use "software" (actually digital
control signals) instead of hard-wired manual
control operation lines doesn't matter to the
"radio's" circuit blocks. Those circuit blocks
still have to be integrated to make the whole
"radio" system. Their theory of operation has
NOT changed.

--
Former professional electron wrangler.

I'm still doing that...but not at regular office
hours...and prefer my own lab/workshop area. :-)