Funny, I think I am a guy looking for sources of info./ideas/exchange which
are worth my time--too bad I am so ignorant I can't recognize 'em when I see
'em--well, according to some...

Warmest regards,
John
--
Marbles can be used in models with excellent results! However, if forced
to keep using all of mine up... I may end up at a disadvantage... I seem
to have misplaced some!!!


wrote in message
ups.com...
| 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. :-)
|
|
|