In article ,
Noon-Air wrote:

You completely missed the point..... A *simple to operate* 100 watt HF rig,
NOT microprocessor based, HAM BANDS ONLY...
What was $700 over 25 years ago, should be able to be produced today for
just a hundred bucks or so. When the latest electronic toys come out, they
command a premium price, and after a couple of years, the price goes down to
where a working stiff can afford them.

Frankly, I'd be astonished if anyone could build a radio to those
specific design goals (non-microprocessor-based, ham-band, 100 watt,
roughly $100 retail price). I don't think that the combination of
technologies, market size, and price can be achieved. It'd be a very
interesting challenge to design, to say the very least!

That's not to say that somebody shouldn't try.

My reasoning is roughly as follows:

- Ham-band operation requires stable frequency operation and
tunability. This either requires a very stable VCO, or a
synthesizer/PLL system of some sort.

- Mass-production consumer electronics, most commercial comms
electronics, and military electronics have long been moving away
from the classic sorts of finely-tuned-and-temperature-
compensated analog oscillators used in a lot of the sort of classic
ham gear you're referring to. These days, decent air-variable
capacitors with good bearings are either special-production builds
(and horribly expensive) or are used or "new old stock" surplus
and thus not suitable for mass commercial use. The same thing
seems to be true for a lot of the other "classic ham" electronic
components... they're being end-of-lifed and we're lucky to be able
to stock up our junk drawers before they're entirely gone!

- Today's low-cost radios are almost all based on synthesizer
technology of some sort, with a microcontroller driving the
synthesizer. I wouldn't want to try driving/commanding a
synthesizer of this sort without a micro - they aren't set up for it.

- Multiple-HF-band operation requires band-specific low-pass
filters... certainly after the amp, and perhaps before. You could
probably get away with a filter system using less filters than
bands (e.g. one filter for 10/12/15, one for 17/20, etc.) but
you're still going to need some LPF switching and some fairly hefty
inductors.

- Restricting to ham-band-only probably doesn't buy you all that
much in savings or performance, these days, due to the large
number of bands. In order to gain big savings, I suspect you'd
have to limit yourself to a monoband radio.

Now, the idea of doing a simple-to-operate, straightforward HF rig
with decent performance isn't a bad one at all. I do suspect that in
order to make it manufacturable at a reasonable price you're going to
have to accept _some_ degree of LSI integration and microprocessor
control. That doesn't mean that it needs to have a massive set of
features, lots of bells and whistles and gawldernblinkinlights, etc.
It could be a nice, clean front panel.

The closest I currently see to what you're looking for is probably the
Ten-Tec Argonaut. However, it's not a full-power barefoot rig... 20
watts... and it's at least five time your cost goal.

I won't say it's impossible to get the retail price of a 100-watt
multiband ham-HF rig down to under $200. However, I suspect that it'd
require a very great deal of optimization and integration, a lot of
use of modern technology (i.e. spinoffs from today's commercially-
available RF and DSP chips), and a development effort which would
require a potential marketplace of hundreds of thousands of units (or
perhaps millions) sold in order to justify.

It'd be interesting to see sorts of HF rigs might be build around a
modulator based on some of today's cellphone chip cores and IP...
direct conversion, high-performance I/Q phasing modulators, and so
forth. More work up front, but (potentially) a lot lower per-unit
incremental cost once you get into volume production.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that the size of the market would justify
the investment, needed to create the sort of radio which you feel
could help maintain and increase the size of the amateur-radio market
in the way that you'd like :-(

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
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