Joel Kolstad wrote:

Michael,

If you don't mind my asking, what sort of professional electron wrangling did
you do prior to becoming disabled?

Good luck on converting your garage... I think there's a good chance you can
get a decent amount of equipment and supplies donated once it's clear (to the
outside world) that you're serious about what you're doing.

----Joel

I worked for L-3com/Microdyne at their Ocala plant as a production
and engineering tech. I also worked with purchasing to find and qualify
replacement sources for components, and the nasty job of removing long
time vendors from our approved list. I worked in every area of the
product line, built test fixtures, wrote test procedures and fought the
apathy of a couple older engineers to fix old design problems. I knew
more about our oldest products than anyone in engineering, so when a
problem cropped up they came running to my bench to ask questions rather
than take the time to research the old records. The last product I
worked on was their RCB-2000, a dual DSP based telemetry receiver, to
take it from the engineering prototypes to the production floor. I was
laid off when my health no longer let me work overtime, even though I
did more in an eight hour shift than any two other people on the line.
Suddenly, I was deemed "Not a team player" because I could barely walk
out the door after my shift. I was troubleshooting and testing the
signal processing boards under a stereo microscope and I did most of my
own rework rather than wait for it to go through the rework department.
I hand soldered 288 pin SMD chips under the microscope. After the
cleaning room was done, QC couldn't find my work on the PC boards. This
radio was introduced to the market at about $80,000. One of the VME
based boards in it cost about $8,000 to stuff, reflow and test. I miss
the work, but I doubt that I'll be able to do that kind of work again,
and the high tech companies have pretty well left this part of the
country.


--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

You have no idea what you
are talking about,

And there Michael, you have defined Johns problem. Richard fed him a
question he couldn't answer and he crept off with a lame excuse of pressing
work until he thought everyone had forgotten about it. I was just
celebrating, when someone else fed him and he's back again in full force. If
he's ignored, eventually, he'll go and bother someone else on someone elses
newsgroup. You don't argue with children, don't feed the troll.

W4ZCB

So, although your original argument was how difficult a bus and keeping
analog seperate from digital which would share various signals--would be,
then, when the argument was made that someone just picked up a bunch of
on-the-shelf items and went ahead and done it... you flip-flop--to where now
it was so obivious someone should have done such a simple thing LONG before
them...

Yanno, you are pretty obivous here--you are like what has been "the standard
method of operation." A long list of why it can't be done--but if someone
can--its' easy!!!

Or, first it is impossible, then, once someone has done it--it is nothing...

Now, that is comming close to a "Troll!" And, that would be proven if once
this is pointed out to you--you use that for a reason to spur more
conflict...

Arguments and debates for the purpose of looking over what is available--of
reaching a logical and organized ideas--are good--argument for conflict is
not...

While some may take pride in finding all the reasons why something is
difficult--or may end up to be "un-do-able" right at the immediate time...
It is the guys who ignore all this and go ahead and do it which are
remembered...

For every thing we have in this world today--there stands inventors,
engineers, technicans, etc.. who could have easily decided it was either too
hard or impossible and given up--thank gawd they were of a different
breed...

Warmest regards,
John
--
When Viagra fails to work--you are DOOMED!!!

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
...
| John Smith wrote:
|
| I don't think the "apple boys" had ever designed a complete computer
before
| they did--indeed, don't remember anyone else (or team of engineers,
techs,
| scientists, etc...) doing a desktop before then...
|
|
| Have you ever looked at the schematic for the Apple II? It was bases
| on the MOS technology 6502 processor and support chips. Its probably
| the simplest "Computer" ever sold and most of the design was in the IC
| data books, just like the original IBM PC was quite close to a sample
| design published by Intel. The only real difference was that the design
| was broken up into modules. Neither of the original designs were
| anything to brag about. Monochrome displays, Apple's half assed
| "custom" floppy disk interface that threw away most of the capacity to
| keep it cheap. The PC was shipped with a cassette interface and no
| floppy drive. It had BASIC in ROM, and was fairly useless until floppy
| and hard drives were available to do any real work.
|
| If you think this is an easy project its time to put up, or shut up.
| Design your simple, "It'll sell billions" project and prove everyone
| wrong, or just shut up.
|
| --
| Former professional electron wrangler.
|
| Michael A. Terrell
| Central Florida

I do work, what the heck to you guys do where you are never pressured to get
anything done--

you know, this is reflected in your text!!! Go do something!

Warmest regards,
John
--
When Viagra fails to work--you are DOOMED!!!

"Harold E. Johnson" wrote in message
news:ZSkge.71560$NU4.55508@attbi_s22...
|
| You have no idea what you
| are talking about,
|
| And there Michael, you have defined Johns problem. Richard fed him a
| question he couldn't answer and he crept off with a lame excuse of
pressing
| work until he thought everyone had forgotten about it. I was just
| celebrating, when someone else fed him and he's back again in full force.
If
| he's ignored, eventually, he'll go and bother someone else on someone
elses
| newsgroup. You don't argue with children, don't feed the troll.
|
| W4ZCB
|
|

Well, whatever you did before, great!!

Now what are you doing? Finding out why nothing else can be done? Perhaps
this is why you are no longer working there...

Regards,
John
--
When Viagra fails to work--you are DOOMED!!!

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
...
| Joel Kolstad wrote:
|
| Michael,
|
| If you don't mind my asking, what sort of professional electron
wrangling did
| you do prior to becoming disabled?
|
| Good luck on converting your garage... I think there's a good chance you
can
| get a decent amount of equipment and supplies donated once it's clear
(to the
| outside world) that you're serious about what you're doing.
|
| ----Joel
|
| I worked for L-3com/Microdyne at their Ocala plant as a production
| and engineering tech. I also worked with purchasing to find and qualify
| replacement sources for components, and the nasty job of removing long
| time vendors from our approved list. I worked in every area of the
| product line, built test fixtures, wrote test procedures and fought the
| apathy of a couple older engineers to fix old design problems. I knew
| more about our oldest products than anyone in engineering, so when a
| problem cropped up they came running to my bench to ask questions rather
| than take the time to research the old records. The last product I
| worked on was their RCB-2000, a dual DSP based telemetry receiver, to
| take it from the engineering prototypes to the production floor. I was
| laid off when my health no longer let me work overtime, even though I
| did more in an eight hour shift than any two other people on the line.
| Suddenly, I was deemed "Not a team player" because I could barely walk
| out the door after my shift. I was troubleshooting and testing the
| signal processing boards under a stereo microscope and I did most of my
| own rework rather than wait for it to go through the rework department.
| I hand soldered 288 pin SMD chips under the microscope. After the
| cleaning room was done, QC couldn't find my work on the PC boards. This
| radio was introduced to the market at about $80,000. One of the VME
| based boards in it cost about $8,000 to stuff, reflow and test. I miss
| the work, but I doubt that I'll be able to do that kind of work again,
| and the high tech companies have pretty well left this part of the
| country.
|
|
| --
| Former professional electron wrangler.
|
| Michael A. Terrell
| Central Florida

Gary S. Idontwantspam@net wrote:
On Tue, 10 May 2005 20:24:45 -0500, "Clair J. Robinson"
wrote:

Roy Lewallen wrote:

This reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon on my wall:

PHB (Pointy-Haired Boss), pointing to flip chart graph of declining
sales: "Our sales are dropping like a rock."

PHB, pointing to flip chart graph labeled "Future" and steadily rising:
"Our plan is to invent some sort of doohickey that everyone wants to buy."

PHB, to Dilbert: "The visionary leadership part is done. How long will
your part take?"

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Wonderful! I missed that one somewhere.

73, CJ K?CJ

The really funny thing about Dilbert is that people who work in that
type of environment see only that the character names are wrong for
their office.

Reminds me of a Will Rogers quote, "I don't make jokes. I just watch
the government and report the facts."

Scott Adams worked in a high-tech office, and reports the facts.

It gives me rather considerable pleasure to report that Scott Adams also
appears to monitor, or participate pseudonomously in, some of the other
newsgroups and mailing lists I frequent. Incidents from more than one of
those groups/lists have appeared in Dilbert essentially unchanged within a
few days of being posted to the group/list.

Sometimes I think Scott works for WeBuildHighways, where I'm employed.

--
Mike Andrews W5EGO 5WPM
Extra
Tired old sysadmin working on his code speed

"John Smith" wrote in message
...
I don't think the "apple boys" had ever designed a complete computer before
they did--indeed, don't remember anyone else (or team of engineers, techs,
scientists, etc...) doing a desktop before then...

Which Apple computer do you mean? The Apple II? Steve & Steve built the
Apple I before then (you can do see one down at the Computer History Museum in
the bay area if you'd like) and I'd bet a nickel they had built other folks'
designs prior to that (e.g., the old Rockwell KIM, perhaps some of the popular
S-100 machines available at the time, etc.). It was "revolutionary" in a
sense, but much more evolutionary from a dry, engineering perspective... but
then again, almost everything is if you look closely enough!

Thanks Michael, that's a very colorful career you've had.

I was
laid off when my health no longer let me work overtime, even though I
did more in an eight hour shift than any two other people on the line.

If you still had some supervisors "on your side" who were willing to go to bat
for you, you might have had very good prospects with a lawsuit based on the
ADA? I'm sorry to hear your company ended up being run by folks who couldn't
see the forest for the trees (or even the broad side of a barn for their
sitting in the outhouse); it's an unfortunate trend in many companies
(especially as they become larger), and I tend to agree with people who
suggest it's often due to technical companies being run by business school
majors (without any engineering experience whatsoever).

---Joel

Joel Kolstad wrote:

Thanks Michael, that's a very colorful career you've had.

I was
laid off when my health no longer let me work overtime, even though I
did more in an eight hour shift than any two other people on the line.

If you still had some supervisors "on your side" who were willing to go to bat
for you, you might have had very good prospects with a lawsuit based on the
ADA? I'm sorry to hear your company ended up being run by folks who couldn't
see the forest for the trees (or even the broad side of a barn for their
sitting in the outhouse); it's an unfortunate trend in many companies
(especially as they become larger), and I tend to agree with people who
suggest it's often due to technical companies being run by business school
majors (without any engineering experience whatsoever).

---Joel


I wasn't legally declared disabled until January of this year, so I
couldn't sue under the ADA. It doesn't matter now, because the company
doesn't exist. It was adsorbed wholly by L-3Com. Several hundred
people lot their jobs, they dropped all but the RCB from the product
line and took less than a dozen people to their new plant up north.

I've also worked as a broadcast engineer, CATV engineering, and owned
an industrial electronics company that did commercial sound, CCTV, MATV,
and oddball systems used by local schools and factories. I built Ch 58
TV in Destin Florida from scratch, starting with a 1952 built TTU-25B
UHF transmitter. I'm in my 50s, and I never planned to retire, but its
being forced on me in several ways.

Still, I find ways to keep busy. I have a couple hundred databooks
in my library. I repair oddball equipment that strike my fancy. Two
current projects are a TS-382 audio generator and a National NC-183R
rack mount receiver. You can check out my personal web site from time
to time to see what I'm working on, and maybe find a manual or oddball
part you need. The link is on the "Organization" line of the message
headers. I am designing a receiver from scratch, but its slow going
because I have to budget carefully for the parts I don't have in stock.
The VA service office told me I'm allowed to make a little money from a
hobby, but they haven't been able to give me a dollar amount, so I'm
holding off trying to make a little extra money till I get their answer
in written form.

--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Well, I am not even ready to argue that point...

You missed the point... what I propose is simpler... it is a radio--not a
computer... and still can be done by those who ignore the nay sayers, no
matter how loudly these nay sayers attempt to shout down progress...

I feel like a pimp in an old age home with hookers, no takers and everyone
there wonders why I am there proposing the ideas I am... grin

Warmest regards,
John
--
Sit down the six-pack!!! STEP AWAY!!! ...and go do something...

"Joel Kolstad" wrote in message
...
| "John Smith" wrote in message
| ...
| I don't think the "apple boys" had ever designed a complete computer
before
| they did--indeed, don't remember anyone else (or team of engineers,
techs,
| scientists, etc...) doing a desktop before then...
|
| Which Apple computer do you mean? The Apple II? Steve & Steve built the
| Apple I before then (you can do see one down at the Computer History
Museum in
| the bay area if you'd like) and I'd bet a nickel they had built other
folks'
| designs prior to that (e.g., the old Rockwell KIM, perhaps some of the
popular
| S-100 machines available at the time, etc.). It was "revolutionary" in a
| sense, but much more evolutionary from a dry, engineering perspective...
but
| then again, almost everything is if you look closely enough!
|
|
|

John Smith wrote:

So, although your original argument was how difficult a bus and keeping
analog seperate from digital which would share various signals--would be,
then, when the argument was made that someone just picked up a bunch of
on-the-shelf items and went ahead and done it... you flip-flop--to where now
it was so obivious someone should have done such a simple thing LONG before
them...


I didn't "Flip-Flop" I know what's involved, including the million
dollar plus expense involved in designing one configuration of a modular
radio.

Yanno, you are pretty obivous here--you are like what has been "the standard
method of operation." A long list of why it can't be done--but if someone
can--its' easy!!!

Or, first it is impossible, then, once someone has done it--it is nothing...


Are you trying to misdirect things again?

Now, that is comming close to a "Troll!" And, that would be proven if once
this is pointed out to you--you use that for a reason to spur more
conflict...


Close to a troll? No, I've never met you.

Arguments and debates for the purpose of looking over what is available--of
reaching a logical and organized ideas--are good--argument for conflict is
not...

While some may take pride in finding all the reasons why something is
difficult--or may end up to be "un-do-able" right at the immediate time...
It is the guys who ignore all this and go ahead and do it which are
remembered...

For every thing we have in this world today--there stands inventors,
engineers, technicans, etc.. who could have easily decided it was either too
hard or impossible and given up--thank gawd they were of a different
breed...

Warmest regards,
John
--
When Viagra fails to work--you are DOOMED!!!


You need to think with the other head, troll.

You have your head up your sorry ass, and I'm through wasting time
with your nonsense. Its obvious that you don't know a dam thing about
design when you compare the Apple II to a real design project. You need
to get an education in design and stop trying to blow smoke up
everyone's ass.

PLONK


--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

John Smith wrote:

Well, whatever you did before, great!!

Now what are you doing? Finding out why nothing else can be done? Perhaps
this is why you are no longer working there...

Regards,
John

Its obvious that you can not read as well as not understand
anything. R.I.P. your last live brain cell.

--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

"Harold E. Johnson" wrote:

You have no idea what you
are talking about,

And there Michael, you have defined Johns problem. Richard fed him a
question he couldn't answer and he crept off with a lame excuse of pressing
work until he thought everyone had forgotten about it. I was just
celebrating, when someone else fed him and he's back again in full force. If
he's ignored, eventually, he'll go and bother someone else on someone elses
newsgroup. You don't argue with children, don't feed the troll.

W4ZCB

No problem, He is now the one and only twit I have had to filter in
this newsgroup. I hate to filter someone out, but he's hopeless.
--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

You my friend, are crude, rude--most likely blued and tattooed... I am sure
other more "intellectual types" will benefit from your form and method of
words and exchange more... goodday!

John
--
Sit down the six-pack!!! STEP AWAY!!! ...and go do something...

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
...
| John Smith wrote:
|
| So, although your original argument was how difficult a bus and keeping
| analog seperate from digital which would share various signals--would
be,
| then, when the argument was made that someone just picked up a bunch of
| on-the-shelf items and went ahead and done it... you flip-flop--to where
now
| it was so obivious someone should have done such a simple thing LONG
before
| them...
|
|
| I didn't "Flip-Flop" I know what's involved, including the million
| dollar plus expense involved in designing one configuration of a modular
| radio.
|
| Yanno, you are pretty obivous here--you are like what has been "the
standard
| method of operation." A long list of why it can't be done--but if
someone
| can--its' easy!!!
|
| Or, first it is impossible, then, once someone has done it--it is
nothing...
|
|
| Are you trying to misdirect things again?
|
| Now, that is comming close to a "Troll!" And, that would be proven if
once
| this is pointed out to you--you use that for a reason to spur more
| conflict...
|
|
| Close to a troll? No, I've never met you.
|
| Arguments and debates for the purpose of looking over what is
available--of
| reaching a logical and organized ideas--are good--argument for conflict
is
| not...
|
| While some may take pride in finding all the reasons why something is
| difficult--or may end up to be "un-do-able" right at the immediate
time...
| It is the guys who ignore all this and go ahead and do it which are
| remembered...
|
| For every thing we have in this world today--there stands inventors,
| engineers, technicans, etc.. who could have easily decided it was either
too
| hard or impossible and given up--thank gawd they were of a different
| breed...
|
| Warmest regards,
| John
| --
| When Viagra fails to work--you are DOOMED!!!
|
|
| You need to think with the other head, troll.
|
| You have your head up your sorry ass, and I'm through wasting time
| with your nonsense. Its obvious that you don't know a dam thing about
| design when you compare the Apple II to a real design project. You need
| to get an education in design and stop trying to blow smoke up
| everyone's ass.
|
| PLONK
|
|
| --
| Former professional electron wrangler.
|
| Michael A. Terrell
| Central Florida

John,

"John Smith" wrote in message
...
You missed the point... what I propose is simpler... it is a radio--not a
computer... and still can be done by those who ignore the nay sayers, no
matter how loudly these nay sayers attempt to shout down progress...

Have you ever heard the saying to the effect that the beginner sees only one
option, which the experienced designer sees many? It really is something of a
curse. :-)

By all means do keep pursuing your interests, but by the same token you might
want to start learning more about RF design and understand where some of the
other posters are coming from. Addressing your original idea, there ARE
"modular" radios out there -- I know I've seen some guy's web site where he
takes this approach -- but the idea that a modular radio can somehow offer the
same performance as a more integrated one is about the same as claiming that
you can build a CPU with the same performance and price of a 3GHz Pentium by
using discrete modules for the ALU, memory controller, cache controller,
instruction decoder, etc. -- it just isn't going to happen. On the other
hand, you certainly COULD build some "many MHz" sort of microcontroller with
this approach, and the sames of microcontrollers today swamps that of Pentiums
anyway. Hence, I think there would be a market for your modular radio
design -- especially within the amateur radio community -- but I doubt you'll
be getting calls from Nokia any time soon.

Software defined radios accomplish a significant amount of the
"reconfigurability" that I think you're looking for, and with ever-increasing
ADC/DAC speeds and DSP horsepower, it probably won't be too long before most
radios digitize directly at RF or IF and the rest is software (oftentimes
highly non-trivial software, however). Even so, you'll always need someone
who understands traditional RF engineering to get the signal from the antenna
to the DAC while preserving the best SNR possible.

---Joel

I have watched a hundred intellectuals fail where one brave man succeeds...

Einstein said, to the effect--genius is 1% inspiration and 99%
perspiration...

Difficulty is expected, only cowards refrain...

In the end, such a radio is not only desirable, it is exactly what is
needed... no argument will change that...

Warmest regards,
John
--
Sit down the six-pack!!! STEP AWAY!!! ...and go do something...

"Joel Kolstad" wrote in message
...
| John,
|
| "John Smith" wrote in message
| ...
| You missed the point... what I propose is simpler... it is a radio--not
a
| computer... and still can be done by those who ignore the nay sayers, no
| matter how loudly these nay sayers attempt to shout down progress...
|
| Have you ever heard the saying to the effect that the beginner sees only
one
| option, which the experienced designer sees many? It really is something
of a
| curse. :-)
|
| By all means do keep pursuing your interests, but by the same token you
might
| want to start learning more about RF design and understand where some of
the
| other posters are coming from. Addressing your original idea, there ARE
| "modular" radios out there -- I know I've seen some guy's web site where
he
| takes this approach -- but the idea that a modular radio can somehow offer
the
| same performance as a more integrated one is about the same as claiming
that
| you can build a CPU with the same performance and price of a 3GHz Pentium
by
| using discrete modules for the ALU, memory controller, cache controller,
| instruction decoder, etc. -- it just isn't going to happen. On the other
| hand, you certainly COULD build some "many MHz" sort of microcontroller
with
| this approach, and the sames of microcontrollers today swamps that of
Pentiums
| anyway. Hence, I think there would be a market for your modular radio
| design -- especially within the amateur radio community -- but I doubt
you'll
| be getting calls from Nokia any time soon.
|
| Software defined radios accomplish a significant amount of the
| "reconfigurability" that I think you're looking for, and with
ever-increasing
| ADC/DAC speeds and DSP horsepower, it probably won't be too long before
most
| radios digitize directly at RF or IF and the rest is software (oftentimes
| highly non-trivial software, however). Even so, you'll always need
someone
| who understands traditional RF engineering to get the signal from the
antenna
| to the DAC while preserving the best SNR possible.
|
| ---Joel
|
|

Nearly ten years ago I had a project to design an ISDN terminal
adapter/router for "home" use. Once the design was completed I
(and several beta testers) had to install ISDN to our homes in order
to evaluate the product. We all lived in SoCal - with PacBell as the
provider.

We spent *months* going around and around with the PacBell
installers, CO technicians and the general bureacracy and so-called
"tech support" folks.

Eventually we gave up and decided to abandon the product and the
project - 'cause we realized that if *we* couldn't get things going with
PacBell there was NO chance for any potential end-user/customer.
The product worked great - we just couldn't get past the install phase
when working with PacBell!!!

A few weeks later I read a bio on Scott Adams and learned that he had
been employed by...........PacBell - in the ISDN engineering group!!!!!
Suddenly it all became clear - and I never laughed so hard...8-).........

Bill

"Mike Andrews" wrote in message
...
Gary S. Idontwantspam@net wrote:
On Tue, 10 May 2005 20:24:45 -0500, "Clair J. Robinson"
wrote:

Roy Lewallen wrote:

This reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon on my wall:

PHB (Pointy-Haired Boss), pointing to flip chart graph of declining
sales: "Our sales are dropping like a rock."

PHB, pointing to flip chart graph labeled "Future" and steadily
rising:
"Our plan is to invent some sort of doohickey that everyone wants to
buy."

PHB, to Dilbert: "The visionary leadership part is done. How long
will
your part take?"

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Wonderful! I missed that one somewhere.

73, CJ K?CJ

The really funny thing about Dilbert is that people who work in that
type of environment see only that the character names are wrong for
their office.

Reminds me of a Will Rogers quote, "I don't make jokes. I just watch
the government and report the facts."

Scott Adams worked in a high-tech office, and reports the facts.

It gives me rather considerable pleasure to report that Scott Adams also
appears to monitor, or participate pseudonomously in, some of the other
newsgroups and mailing lists I frequent. Incidents from more than one of
those groups/lists have appeared in Dilbert essentially unchanged within a
few days of being posted to the group/list.

Sometimes I think Scott works for WeBuildHighways, where I'm employed.

--
Mike Andrews W5EGO 5WPM
Extra
Tired old sysadmin working on his code speed

"John Smith" wrote in message
...
I have watched a hundred intellectuals fail where one brave man succeeds...

Yeah, but for every brave man's successs, there are thousands of failures too.
:-)

Einstein said, to the effect--genius is 1% inspiration and 99%
perspiration...

I think that was Edison? Einstein said something like, "Creativity is more
important than knowledge," which unfortunately a lot of people seem to want to
interpret as "Hence, knowledge is unimportant," which is not at all what he
meant.

In the end, such a radio is not only desirable, it is exactly what is
needed... no argument will change that...

Well John, there's nothing stopping you from desgining and building the thing.
Even in the post-Internet boom era here, though, you'll probably have a much
easier time finding venture capital from a bunch of businessmen than from a
bunch of engineers.

I do think it's true that, in various areas, amateur radio now plays
technological "catch up" to commercial technologies. IMO, this is a
reflection of the fact that (unlike 40 years ago) designing a "modern radio"
(such as a cell phone) costs literally tens to hundreds of millions of dollars
and hundreds of man years. There's just no way companies like Icom, Yaesu,
etc. can invest that sort of effort when you look at the sales volumes of
their radios (and the fact that -- unlike cell phones -- amateur radio usage
doesn't provide them with any revenue!). A lot of the most interesting
advancements in amateur radio in the past couple of decades have come from the
likes of Doug DeMaw, Bob Larkin, Rick Campbell, Roy Lewallen, Wes Hayward,
etc. -- all of whom, insofar as I'm aware, spent some of their professional
lives performing RF design for well-funded companies. I don't think that's a
coincidence.

---Joel

Joel:

Well, great men have come and gone, what are some younger names which will
be taking on these challenges of the future? A history lesson does not
serve as innovation or chat about new ideas which are needed...

I don't expect people in their 50's on up to be the innovators, it is the
younger crowd who has been educated in universities, with access to the
newest state of the art labs available which will be taking on these
projects--that is a given, I never though different... if you didn't have
access to a computer by jr. college, you are probably not in this group of
new engineers...

The men in their 20s to 30s are the ones with the access to industry and
design labs where these ideas can be taken to... the ones on the cutting
edge--the ones able to introduce new ideas and get them looked at... the
ones to build one and take it around to demonstrate...

I was just hoping there were some here, maybe not...

Warmest regards,
John
--
Sit down the six-pack!!! STEP AWAY!!! ...and go do something...

"Joel Kolstad" wrote in message
...
| "John Smith" wrote in message
| ...
| I have watched a hundred intellectuals fail where one brave man
succeeds...
|
| Yeah, but for every brave man's successs, there are thousands of failures
too.
| :-)
|
| Einstein said, to the effect--genius is 1% inspiration and 99%
| perspiration...
|
| I think that was Edison? Einstein said something like, "Creativity is
more
| important than knowledge," which unfortunately a lot of people seem to
want to
| interpret as "Hence, knowledge is unimportant," which is not at all what
he
| meant.
|
| In the end, such a radio is not only desirable, it is exactly what is
| needed... no argument will change that...
|
| Well John, there's nothing stopping you from desgining and building the
thing.
| Even in the post-Internet boom era here, though, you'll probably have a
much
| easier time finding venture capital from a bunch of businessmen than from
a
| bunch of engineers.
|
| I do think it's true that, in various areas, amateur radio now plays
| technological "catch up" to commercial technologies. IMO, this is a
| reflection of the fact that (unlike 40 years ago) designing a "modern
radio"
| (such as a cell phone) costs literally tens to hundreds of millions of
dollars
| and hundreds of man years. There's just no way companies like Icom,
Yaesu,
| etc. can invest that sort of effort when you look at the sales volumes of
| their radios (and the fact that -- unlike cell phones -- amateur radio
usage
| doesn't provide them with any revenue!). A lot of the most interesting
| advancements in amateur radio in the past couple of decades have come from
the
| likes of Doug DeMaw, Bob Larkin, Rick Campbell, Roy Lewallen, Wes Hayward,
| etc. -- all of whom, insofar as I'm aware, spent some of their
professional
| lives performing RF design for well-funded companies. I don't think
that's a
| coincidence.
|
| ---Joel
|
|

"John Smith" wrote in message
...
I don't think the "apple boys" had ever designed a complete computer before
they did--indeed, don't remember anyone else (or team of engineers, techs,
scientists, etc...) doing a desktop before then...

You mean, China, Russia, India, USA, Canada, So. American, Mexico,
etc--and
every gov't, business, private individual, ham and cb'er... is not a big
enough market... these things would be manufactured in China yanno!!!


Nope the entire world wide population of hams is NOT enough. The US has
just under 700,000. Japan has somewhere around 1 million (there numbers are
hard to determine due to their licensing system). The remainder of the
world combined has right around the same total of the US. This gives a
worldwide ham population of under 2.5 million. So starting from that
rough estimate, let's look at some figures. Very, very few people buy a new
HF rig annually. Just using the people I know, it's more like every 5 to 10
years. So let's use an average of 7.5 years. That means a total of 333,000
new radios (rounding off the answer) sold in any given year. Now split that
between 3 makers, yielding 111,000 units per maker. That's pretty low
volume to undertake radical development. We're probably lucky that we get
any new features.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

Dee:

That certainly brings things to perspecive--doesn't it?, there are roughly
33 million (and uncounted illegals) here in calif alone... (I think canada
is much less than Calif's population--so is australia)

The whole world of hams is only a small minority here in calif (more illegal
aliens here!!!!)

But, I see your point, there is much more of a market in most any other area
of communications, marine communications alone would be a larger market
share... police/ambulance/fire radios probably are a larger share!!!
Aircraft radios?

But, it would be better to market to gov't, industry, military, public
service, etc... your point is well taken...

Warmest regards,
John
--
Sit down the six-pack!!! STEP AWAY!!! ...and go do something...

"Dee Flint" wrote in message
...
|
| "John Smith" wrote in message
| ...
| I don't think the "apple boys" had ever designed a complete computer
before
| they did--indeed, don't remember anyone else (or team of engineers,
techs,
| scientists, etc...) doing a desktop before then...
|
| You mean, China, Russia, India, USA, Canada, So. American, Mexico,
| etc--and
| every gov't, business, private individual, ham and cb'er... is not a big
| enough market... these things would be manufactured in China yanno!!!
|
|
| Nope the entire world wide population of hams is NOT enough. The US has
| just under 700,000. Japan has somewhere around 1 million (there numbers
are
| hard to determine due to their licensing system). The remainder of the
| world combined has right around the same total of the US. This gives a
| worldwide ham population of under 2.5 million. So starting from that
| rough estimate, let's look at some figures. Very, very few people buy a
new
| HF rig annually. Just using the people I know, it's more like every 5 to
10
| years. So let's use an average of 7.5 years. That means a total of
333,000
| new radios (rounding off the answer) sold in any given year. Now split
that
| between 3 makers, yielding 111,000 units per maker. That's pretty low
| volume to undertake radical development. We're probably lucky that we get
| any new features.
|
| Dee D. Flint, N8UZE
|
|

I think that's wildly optimistic. First, many, many licensed amateurs
aren't active and don't own a rig at all. Another very large fraction
buy only VHF/UHF gear. And, I don't know whether your figure of 700k
hams with U.S. licenses includes the large number who are residents of
other countries and also have licenses in those countries. Many of the
foreign hams I hear from give a U.S. callsign along with their native one.

I think the only reason we get the radios we do is that the
manufacturers can combine the design with equipment for other markets,
such as public safety for HTs. I've read that the lack of 220 MHz HTs is
because of the absence of a nearby public service band, so the
manufacturers can't use the same design for both services. I find that
believable. I don't know how important additional markets are to HF
equipment development, or what they would be these days. My guess is
that the manufacturers don't make an awful lot on their HF equipment lines.

In any case, the total market, particularly for HF gear, is surely much
less than this estimate.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Dee Flint wrote:

Nope the entire world wide population of hams is NOT enough. The US has
just under 700,000. Japan has somewhere around 1 million (there numbers are
hard to determine due to their licensing system). The remainder of the
world combined has right around the same total of the US. This gives a
worldwide ham population of under 2.5 million. So starting from that
rough estimate, let's look at some figures. Very, very few people buy a new
HF rig annually. Just using the people I know, it's more like every 5 to 10
years. So let's use an average of 7.5 years. That means a total of 333,000
new radios (rounding off the answer) sold in any given year. Now split that
between 3 makers, yielding 111,000 units per maker. That's pretty low
volume to undertake radical development. We're probably lucky that we get
any new features.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

Hi John,

Well, great men have come and gone, what are some younger names which will
be taking on these challenges of the future?

I think Rick Campbell has gotta be 30-something or 40-something? I know one
of his former professors, and that professor has only been a teacher for
something like a decade now...

To some degree, younger folks are out there working at their day jobs. Not
that I'll know for another few decades, but I expect that retirement gives one
a lot of time to 'catch up' on their favorite ham persuits. Bob Larkin
designed the DSP-10 software defined radio back in 1999 and -- while I'm
making a lot of guesses here -- I believe that was not too long after Celwave
(now defunct) bought his small company where he was designing and producing
cell phone base station equipment and thereby allowed him a little more free
time to design and publish for the amateur community.

I don't expect people in their 50's on up to be the innovators, it is the
younger crowd who has been educated in universities, with access to the
newest state of the art labs available which will be taking on these
projects--that is a given, I never though different...

Colleges today are a very different place than they were, say, 30 or more
years ago. At least here in the US, it's pretty much "expected" that everyone
at least attempts to receive a higher education, and this has caused a large
change in college curriculum. To put it bluntly, it's become dumbed down and
a shockingly large percentage of the students there really don't _want_ a
highly challenging, rigorous five years -- they want a decent income in a
reasonably secure industry (computers and electronics). Industry goes along
with this because, realistically, what they need are predominently technician
level employees and not true innovators or researchers.

Of course, for people truly interested in learning and innovating, there are
probably more opportunities now than ever before (think of what Einstein could
have done if he had been born in 1980...). What I'm arguing here is that it
shouldn't be surprising that an increase in the number of college students and
the availability of high quality test equipment doesn't translate into some
phenomenally large spike in the innovation seen in amateur radio.

There is plenty of innovation going on in amateur radio right now. Winlink
2000 is a good example: many of the people who support it are the younger set,
and many of the people who oppose it are the 'geriatric' crowd! Some of the
true technical problems with WL2K -- such as the lack of busy detectors, best
performance being obtained only with the proprietary PACTOR 3 modems, etc. --
have spurred additional innovation with results such as SCAMP. I actually
find it quite surprising that the most "digital radio" innovation seems to
occur on the HF bands rather than VHF or above, but I expect this will change
in the not so distant future. (I've mentioned before that personally I'm
eyeing the 220MHz band -- very much neglected for many years now -- as prime
territory for digital experimentation...)

---Joel

"Joel Kolstad" ) writes:

I think that was Edison? Einstein said something like, "Creativity is more
important than knowledge," which unfortunately a lot of people seem to want to
interpret as "Hence, knowledge is unimportant," which is not at all what he
meant.

You can't really be creative unless you understand the situation. On the
other hand, people can spout things but be unable to do anything with
it because they aren't extracting from the situation.

Creativity is an extrapolation. A good example is Charles Kitchin's
work with regen and superregen receivers. He went back, looked at early
material, understood it, and then implemented solid state versions.

Michael VE2BVW

Roy,

You make a lot of good points. I would like to see the return of 220MHz HTs!
I am heartened to see that the stereotype of hams as tightwads has softened to
some degree... perhaps it is all the boomers retiring and finding that buying
a new rig every year or two really doesn't put too much of a dent in their
annual vacation plans.

How many of those 2.5 million hams possess a copy of EZNEC, I wonder? :-)

---Joel

In article ,
John Smith wrote:

Dee:

That certainly brings things to perspecive--doesn't it?, there are roughly
33 million (and uncounted illegals) here in calif alone... (I think canada
is much less than Calif's population--so is australia)

The whole world of hams is only a small minority here in calif (more illegal
aliens here!!!!)

But, I see your point, there is much more of a market in most any other area
of communications, marine communications alone would be a larger market
share... police/ambulance/fire radios probably are a larger share!!!
Aircraft radios?

But, it would be better to market to gov't, industry, military, public
service, etc... your point is well taken...

Right... and this design approach might or might not be attractive to
them, given their specific needs.

You wrote earlier today of the new generation of youngsters, with
access to better equipment, at today's colleges. That might be a good
next place for you to consider floating this idea... you might find an
EE professor who would consider it to be an attractive design project
for a graduate-level (or high-undergrad) class in RF and electronic
design.

While you're there, you might also want to see if you could persuade
somebody in the business school tackle the other aspects of such a
venture... a market analysis, and a business-case justification.

For any such design to fly, it's going to have to make both technical
sense, and economic sense... as defined by the people you expect to
have buy/use it.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

Joel Kolstad wrote:
. . .
How many of those 2.5 million hams possess a copy of EZNEC, I wonder? :-)

A miniscule fraction.

I get many requests to contribute EZNEC for a door prize and gladly did
so, quite a few times. Not a single one of the stamped, self-addressed
post cards enclosed with the programs was ever returned, which I've
interpreted to mean that the recipients most likely never used the
program. I belive that the vast majority of amateurs not only don't have
EZNEC, but wouldn't have any use for it if given one. I no longer
contribute EZNEC, since there's no point in giving as a prize something
there's high probability that the recipient doesn't want. On the
positive side, there are enough EZNEC users to have allowed me to stay
out of the cube farm for ten years now. And they're a great bunch of folks.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

"Roy Lewallen" wrote in message
...
I get many requests to contribute EZNEC for a door prize and gladly did
so, quite a few times. Not a single one of the stamped, self-addressed
post cards enclosed with the programs was ever returned, which I've
interpreted to mean that the recipients most likely never used the
program.

Hmm... I suppose that, instead of the way it's usually done where every one is
eligible for every prize, hamfests could perform raffles where people have
checked off what prize they really want (give them so many "raffle points"
that they can spend on various "priced" prizes they win if their ticket is
drawn).

You could ask at FDIM how many of the people there have actually used EZNEC or
a similar program. Besides L. B. Cebik, of course... :-)

---Joel

Dave:

I am at loggerheads with admin. and my department head as I type...

There are many reasons that may not happen... the college knows them ALL...
if you think anyone suggesting something new is "shark-food" here, you
should see the entrenched lines of thought there...

....no one likes change--except a wet baby...

Warmest regards,
John
--
Sit down the six-pack!!! STEP AWAY!!! ...and go do something...

"Dave Platt" wrote in message
...
| In article ,
| John Smith wrote:
|
| Dee:
|
| That certainly brings things to perspecive--doesn't it?, there are
roughly
| 33 million (and uncounted illegals) here in calif alone... (I think
canada
| is much less than Calif's population--so is australia)
|
| The whole world of hams is only a small minority here in calif (more
illegal
| aliens here!!!!)
|
| But, I see your point, there is much more of a market in most any other
area
| of communications, marine communications alone would be a larger market
| share... police/ambulance/fire radios probably are a larger share!!!
| Aircraft radios?
|
| But, it would be better to market to gov't, industry, military, public
| service, etc... your point is well taken...
|
| Right... and this design approach might or might not be attractive to
| them, given their specific needs.
|
| You wrote earlier today of the new generation of youngsters, with
| access to better equipment, at today's colleges. That might be a good
| next place for you to consider floating this idea... you might find an
| EE professor who would consider it to be an attractive design project
| for a graduate-level (or high-undergrad) class in RF and electronic
| design.
|
| While you're there, you might also want to see if you could persuade
| somebody in the business school tackle the other aspects of such a
| venture... a market analysis, and a business-case justification.
|
| For any such design to fly, it's going to have to make both technical
| sense, and economic sense... as defined by the people you expect to
| have buy/use it.
|
| --
| Dave Platt AE6EO
| Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
| I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
| boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

Roy:

I have pointed out your EZNEC to the Ghz "Wireless WAN/LAN
Raiders"--"Wireless Cam Raiders"-- here...

Trust me, there are young minds attempting to design new antennas for
routers and tapping into wireless cams here....

I have seen some thought provoking ideas they are building... now the big
thing is "passive repeaters".... antennas to bend signals around houses
and down blocks... around sound walls, etc. But some are of even active
design... they sqeeze miles out of wireless router signal!!!!

These young guys can put some strange designs to work out of threaded rods,
washers, coffee cans, sheet metal, stovepipe, old 18"--6 foot aluminum
dishes, coathangers and bbq grills, short bits of copper wire soldered along
yardlong+ copper tubing, etc... EZNEC is there!!!

Farthest guy stays tapped in to the garage net here from his home 2+ miles
away... on a router/switch meant for home use!!!

My first antenna was a 120 ft long wire for sw--theirs is usually of a 2100
Mhz design!!!

Only thing I caution them of is high rf levels at these freqs--they have
little fear of microwaves until the dangers are made clear... they
constantly search ebay for microwave mosfets... when they mention ideas of a
PA out of a microwave oven--one does do some worry...

I built a crystal radio as my first project, didn't everyone back then? I
stand in awe....

Warmest regards,
John
--
Sit down the six-pack!!! STEP AWAY!!! ...and go do something...

"Roy Lewallen" wrote in message
...
| Joel Kolstad wrote:
| . . .
| How many of those 2.5 million hams possess a copy of EZNEC, I wonder?
:-)
|
| A miniscule fraction.
|
| I get many requests to contribute EZNEC for a door prize and gladly did
| so, quite a few times. Not a single one of the stamped, self-addressed
| post cards enclosed with the programs was ever returned, which I've
| interpreted to mean that the recipients most likely never used the
| program. I belive that the vast majority of amateurs not only don't have
| EZNEC, but wouldn't have any use for it if given one. I no longer
| contribute EZNEC, since there's no point in giving as a prize something
| there's high probability that the recipient doesn't want. On the
| positive side, there are enough EZNEC users to have allowed me to stay
| out of the cube farm for ten years now. And they're a great bunch of
folks.
|
| Roy Lewallen, W7EL

"John Smith" wrote in message
...
Only thing I caution them of is high rf levels at these freqs--they have
little fear of microwaves until the dangers are made clear... they
constantly search ebay for microwave mosfets... when they mention ideas of a
PA out of a microwave oven--one does do some worry...

I'd worry aout someone who starts suggesting disassembling a microwave oven
too...

On the other hand, if they get themselves a bunch of microwave 'FETs from
eBay, by the time they actually manage to make a working power amplifier
they'll have had to absorb so much knowledge that they'll undoubtedly already
appreciate how much power they're playing around with!

"You can't really be creative unless you understand the situation."

Ohh, now I see--we are all just waiting for "that guy/gal"....

Warmest regards,
John
--
Sit down the six-pack!!! STEP AWAY!!! ...and go do something...

"Michael Black" wrote in message
...
|
| "Joel Kolstad" ) writes:
|
| I think that was Edison? Einstein said something like, "Creativity is
more
| important than knowledge," which unfortunately a lot of people seem to
want to
| interpret as "Hence, knowledge is unimportant," which is not at all what
he
| meant.
|
| You can't really be creative unless you understand the situation. On the
| other hand, people can spout things but be unable to do anything with
| it because they aren't extracting from the situation.
|
| Creativity is an extrapolation. A good example is Charles Kitchin's
| work with regen and superregen receivers. He went back, looked at early
| material, understood it, and then implemented solid state versions.
|
| Michael VE2BVW

Joel:

Do a search of the net, you will see some of the designs, circuits, boards
there...
These kids are a real network of hobbyists... takes 'em about a week to pick
it up (well, that might be exaggerating)...

.... and while they mention the microwave oven--I don't think anyone is
attempting it!!! Think of the poor birds landing on that antenna and trying
to keep warm in the winter!!! frown

Warmest regards,
John
--
Sit down the six-pack!!! STEP AWAY!!! ...and go do something...

"Joel Kolstad" wrote in message
...
| "John Smith" wrote in message
| ...
| Only thing I caution them of is high rf levels at these freqs--they have
| little fear of microwaves until the dangers are made clear... they
| constantly search ebay for microwave mosfets... when they mention ideas
of a
| PA out of a microwave oven--one does do some worry...
|
| I'd worry aout someone who starts suggesting disassembling a microwave
oven
| too...
|
| On the other hand, if they get themselves a bunch of microwave 'FETs from
| eBay, by the time they actually manage to make a working power amplifier
| they'll have had to absorb so much knowledge that they'll undoubtedly
already
| appreciate how much power they're playing around with!
|
|

Hi John,

"John Smith" wrote in message
...
Do a search of the net, you will see some of the designs, circuits, boards
there...

Any pointers to 802.11b/g amplifiers? Most of the results I get Googling are
for the more "traditional" designs (from RF component vendors, booksellers,
etc.) -- I didn't see any homebrew 2.4GHz amp schematics aimed at the casusal
WiFi enthusiast.

... and while they mention the microwave oven--I don't think anyone is
attempting it!!!

Someone claiming they can take a magnetron from a $59 Wal*Mart microwave oven
and turn it into a reasonably linear power amplifier has a pretty poor
understanding just what it is that (1) amplifiers and (2) magnetrons from
cheap microwave ovens are meant to do. :-)

From: Paul Keinanen on Wed,May 11 2005 12:13 am

On 10 May 2005 13:59:13 -0700, wrote:

From: Paul Keinanen on 10 May 2005 09:11:19 -0700

In a radio receivers, the signal levels vary
from less than a microvolt to several volts, so the crosstalk issues
are much more demanding.

I will disagree on radio receivers on such wide dynamic
ranges. "Several volts" INTO a receiver front end?
No. Such levels aren't encountered in practical
locations and would, definitely, cause enough IM
that would create much distortion and spur products.

Look at a multitransmitter contest site with one transmitter on each
band, the voltage induced to the receiving antennas for other bands
can be quite large.

In a production model receiver? Mais non. That's
not a design prerequisite, never was, not even with
the Rhode & Schwarz designs featuring very high
3rd IP specifications.

I've been IN such situations on aircraft installations
where the potential RFI was much stronger than in ham
DXpedition or Field Day setups. The work-arounds to
make the receivers operate is NOT a design criteria,
not in avionics-oriented design plans.

Of course, in a competent receiver design only the
frequency band of interest is filtered out before processing. However,
if the antenna is connected directly to the backplane and the modules
do their own filtering, the large composite signal on the backplane
will radiate all around the system.

Possibly, IF and only IF the antenna IS connected
to the "backplane" (or motherboard). Why must it be
so? Look at the PC. Sound cards have their audio
input (at microphone levels) on a separate connection).
No interference doing that.

In non-contest sites large wire or log-periodic antennas can collect a
quite large signal voltage (in the order of 0 dBm, 220 mV or more).

Perhaps, but that still isn't a design criterion for
present-day ham receivers.

Also if the final IF is within or below the receiver tuning range and
a diode ring mixer is used as the SSB demodulator with +7 or +17 dBm,
you must keep this BFO signal and harmonics from entering the front
end.

Yes...but that was a problem a half century ago, too! :-)


Even the SDR is going to need some switchable front end band pass
filters in order to survive in the hostile RF environment these days
with a lot of strong signals even in ordinary sites.

Diode switching. My two-decade old Icom R-70 has that
to select approximate octave-bandwidth bandpass filters
to cover 50 KHz to 30 MHz. Has its own little PCB,
probably because every single L, C, diode, and resistor
is included on that board...no shielding except from
the side wall of the cabinet and part of the cast frame.

I've had that little receiver within a city block from
AM BC station KMPC running 50 KW into its towers. Worked
fine with a temporary long-wire antenna despite the RF
around that station.

In transceivers, there would be several points that would need
switching.

Of course. That's what was done two decades ago.

I used the CANbus as an example, since the cable can be tens or
hundreds of meters long depending on speed and thus, it could be used
to control some internal points in a transceiver as well as wire all
devices in the ham shack as well as in the tower. For instance, the
same controller could control the antenna rotator, command the antenna
preamplifier to bypass mode, turn the transvertter into transmit mode,
select the VFO frequency for transmit (in split operation) and finally
turn the transmitter on.

Right, no problem...except for the individual ham
installer who then has to set up the "program" to
do all those things. Can they? :-)

I think a better approach is something like SGC does
in their automatic antenna tuners. They add a
frequency meter function to their tuner micro-
controller, a small section of Flash memory to
hold data, measure an RF input, adjust the coupler
switches to compensate for VSWR, then record that
data in memory. Any future frequency close to the
recorded memory can use the same settings.

Near-ultimate in modularity is thus achieved. Needs
only DC power to operate and doesn't care what kind
of transmitter is connected to it...as long as its in
specification for power and frequency. Absolutely
"plug-and-play!" :-)


What is lacking is STANDARDIZATION.

This is definitely a big problem.

Yes and no. :-) It's like a recipe for "tiger
soup:" "First, you have to catch a tiger..."

In a similar way, there must be SOME idea of
what kind of control range, modulation, etc.,
etc. would be expected...and for what radio
service. The FCC in the USA can't yet come to
grips on that, nor has industry made much
progress outside of their own product lines.

Right now, it is more like Pandora's Box.


That can't be worked out in newsgroups,

A newsgroup is a good place for open ended discussions between people
with experience in quite different fields.

I agree. But, like the infamous "John Smith,"
it can be infiltrated with someone who doesn't
have either the experience or the courage to
use his/her real name. Raises the noise
level enough to make some go QRT for a while.


Writing a formal specification may require some formal organisation,
but on the other hand quite a few successful RFCs in the IT sector are
written by a single person or a small group.

Ahem...that INDUSTRY specification is going to
range considerably farther than some small group
within one company. As to IT (Information
Technology), I've not seen ANY industry-wide
softwares which extend beyond corporate levels
and that's been for the last three decades.
LANGUAGES not counted there.

and willingness to compromise

That is the problem in formal committees, in which most delegates from
various vendors have large commercial interests in the subject and in
order to be able to produce even some kind of standard, all features
from various vendors are included.

I'll just cite the ARINC standards which are
generally used internationally for all civil
avionics, from radio to radar, radionavigation
systems. ALL the interfaces to every avionics
box and the physical shape and mountings. NOT
a big commercial venture in terms of profit.
If you've been able to read the verbatim minutes
of ARINC meetings (I have), then you would see
that it can be done.

ARINC = Aeronautical Radio INCorporated, once a
radio communications provider for airlines,
later evolving into a combined industry-government
central standards organization for civil avionics.
[they have a website, BTW, but the documents are
horribly expensive now...]

From: "Dee Flint" on Wed,May 11 2005 3:14 pm

"John Smith" wrote in message
...
I don't think the "apple boys" had ever designed a complete computer
before
they did--indeed, don't remember anyone else (or team of engineers,
techs,
scientists, etc...) doing a desktop before then...

You mean, China, Russia, India, USA, Canada, So. American, Mexico,
etc--and
every gov't, business, private individual, ham and cb'er... is not a
big
enough market... these things would be manufactured in China
yanno!!!

Nope the entire world wide population of hams is NOT enough. The US
has
just under 700,000.

As of 11 May 2005, www.hamdata.com reports 723,737 total
U.S. amateur radio licensees.

Japan has somewhere around 1 million (there numbers are
hard to determine due to their licensing system). The remainder of
the
world combined has right around the same total of the US. This gives
a
worldwide ham population of under 2.5 million. So starting from
that
rough estimate, let's look at some figures. Very, very few people buy
a new
HF rig annually. Just using the people I know, it's more like every 5
to 10
years. So let's use an average of 7.5 years. That means a total of
333,000
new radios (rounding off the answer) sold in any given year. Now
split that
between 3 makers, yielding 111,000 units per maker.

Only "three?" :-)

That's pretty low
volume to undertake radical development. We're probably lucky that we
get
any new features.

Tsk, tsk. Having first started to legally transmit
RF (on HF) in 1953, I've been watching the progress
of most ALL radio technology for a mere half century.
...and seen the DESIGN as well as manufacturing shift
to Asia. In Japan alone, there are at least FOUR
corporations doing HF radio design, not just three.
USA designers and manufacturers ARE there NOW, but
none of them are Collins, National Radio, RME, or
Hallicrafters. [only Collins Radio is left of all
of them and they do NOT make ham equipment]

Take FREQUENCY CONTROL, an essential thing for stable
SSB work on HF. The PLL took care of that nicely
with - perhaps - Icom leading the way to get 10 Hz
increments at quartz crystal control. To save some
costs, the three major players (Icom, Yaesu, Kenwood)
switched over to DDS (Direct Digital Syntheses) after
trying out 'fractional-N' PLL synthesizers.

Asian DESIGNERS and manufacturers were there first
with the LCD screens to show analog information in
digital form. They may also have been the first to
include microprocessors and microcontrollers to act
as control-display interfaces, saving hundreds of
store dollars per unit and eliminating mechanical
couplings almost entirely.

Try DSP (Digital Signal Processing). That's in the
ham gear of TODAY. Not a "first" in amateur rigs
since it was first introduced on consumer electronics.
But, it is THERE. Today. [I could go on...:-) ]

100K production lots are "low volume to undertake
radical development?!?!?" Oh, my. Let's look at
that in more detail...say at 10K production runs.
Try, for example, with an average price of $1000
per HF ham transceiver. Sell price dollar flow
would be $10 MILLION. Designer-manuafcturer dollar
flow is roughly half that, $5 MILLION to split off
many ways: component costs, burden, advertising,
profit, losses on defects, to name the major items.
Perhaps $500K can be the amount amortized for the
actual R&D. At $50/hour in estimated engineering
salaries-plus-burden of Japanese companies, that's
10,000 man-hours for the design-development budget.
A team of 10 then has 1000 hours average to do one
task. At 50 hours per week, that's 20 weeks to
get what is largely (in practice) the production
side of the house going, at least a third of a
year.

But, very very few designs are "brand-new" in ANY
catalog. The majority are revisions of the older
models, perhaps using the same "universal" cast
framework-support and cabinet but needing only the
front-panel face-lift. The time - at 10K run
lots - is plenty long enough to come up with the
"new improved state-of-the-art" things that glow
triumphantly (in purple prose) from the ads in
QST. :-)

Do the big makers have "single model" catalogs?
No. Not even the medium-sized ones. All have
MANY models and branches...such as the Handheld
transceivers. The HTs plus VHF/UHF base stations
tend to be the company bread-and-butter items,
sold - in almost the same features as for hams -
to industry, business, and government. With
some revisions of the basic structure those
become "amateur radios."

On the down side, the HF bands are NOT a big-
ticket item for communications as they once were.
Today the RF world is deep into cellular
telephony for sites and providers, and some
for users (at companies with large production
lines and consumer marketing structures). The
world of communications has moved UP and over
that mythical, artificial dividing line of
30 MHz.

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

John Smith wrote:

So, although your original argument was how difficult a bus and
keeping
analog seperate from digital which would share various
signals--would be,
then, when the argument was made that someone just picked up a bunch
of
on-the-shelf items and went ahead and done it... you flip-flop--to
where now
it was so obivious someone should have done such a simple thing LONG
before
them...

I didn't "Flip-Flop" I know what's involved, including the million
dollar plus expense involved in designing one configuration of a
modular
radio.

Michael, don't let this POSEUR bother you. That
anony-mouse "John Smith" hasn't been there, hasn't
done it. He wants to be "Instant Guru" and wants
a "rep" without doing any work for it. From what
he states - all in generalities, no specifics -
he can't think things out close to necessary detail.

You were right to "plonk" him.


You have your head up your sorry ass, and I'm through wasting time
with your nonsense. Its obvious that you don't know a dam thing about
design when you compare the Apple II to a real design project. You
need
to get an education in design and stop trying to blow smoke up
everyone's ass.

Way to go! :-)

At some other time I wouldn't mind having a friendly
argument with you on the Apple ][...but not with this
anony-mouse hanging around trying to intrude and
smoke up the place. I still have my 1980-purchase
Apple ][+ and had a lot of fun with it...including
lots of calculations (Applesoft had 10-digit
accuracy with 5-byte FP variables, muy better than
4-byte single precision). I've gone into the hard-
ware and analyzed it thoroughly, scoped it, written
it up...submitted it as a manuscript only to find out
Howard W. Sams was already in production on a similar
book! :-)

In many ways, the PRODUCTION version of the Apple ][
was the forerunner of the IBM PC out of Boca Raton.
But designed (or rather re-designed) about two years
prior to the IBM PC. Uncanny similarity between the
two in basic structure, expansion slots, and - yes -
"open architecture." PRODUCTION planning went into
the ][ and it wasn't much like the original board-
only Apple.

But, the ][ on up to the Apple //gs were terrific RF
generators! :-) By contrast, a similar structure
using only three main chips (CPU from Western Design,
64K EPROM, 64K/128K Static RAM) can be very nice and
quiet RF wise because of the internal transistor
structures in those chips. [I've already done a
preliminary breadboard setup to verify that] Such a
controller system can adapt itself to many kinds of
"radio controller" applications without any of the
RF coupling problems. It's been done before by the
big three in Japan using older microcontrollers in
many different transceivers, all without disturbing
the receiver or the transmitter specifications.

Too many of the older hams are oriented towards a
"legacy radio" structure...mostly analog. That
just doesn't adapt to "plug-and-play" ease of adding
or modifying an SDR. Trying to use a common PC as
a "model" for an SDR is a bunch of nonsense. The
"bus" and "interface structure" is an analogue only
the broadest sense of the term. Doesn't apply,
either technically or organizationally.

"Roy Lewallen" wrote in message
...
I think that's wildly optimistic. First, many, many licensed amateurs
aren't active and don't own a rig at all. Another very large fraction buy
only VHF/UHF gear. And, I don't know whether your figure of 700k hams with
U.S. licenses includes the large number who are residents of other
countries and also have licenses in those countries. Many of the foreign
hams I hear from give a U.S. callsign along with their native one.

I think the only reason we get the radios we do is that the manufacturers
can combine the design with equipment for other markets, such as public
safety for HTs. I've read that the lack of 220 MHz HTs is because of the
absence of a nearby public service band, so the manufacturers can't use
the same design for both services. I find that believable. I don't know
how important additional markets are to HF equipment development, or what
they would be these days. My guess is that the manufacturers don't make an
awful lot on their HF equipment lines.

In any case, the total market, particularly for HF gear, is surely much
less than this estimate.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL



Actually I agree. I was thinking of cutting that in half due to inactive
hams and got in a rush and forgot to do that.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

Well, I don't respond well to personal attacks, character assassinations,
juvenile exchanges--I really just don't have time--nothing to be gained
really--but, if you must, proceed at your desire...

rec.radio.cb has made me aware of such exchanges on newsgroups--and
thickened my skin... grin

John
--
Sit down the six-pack!!! STEP AWAY!!! ...and go do something...

wrote in message
oups.com...
| From: "Michael A. Terrell" on Wed,May 11 2005 9:50 am
|
| John Smith wrote:
|
| So, although your original argument was how difficult a bus and
| keeping
| analog seperate from digital which would share various
| signals--would be,
| then, when the argument was made that someone just picked up a bunch
| of
| on-the-shelf items and went ahead and done it... you flip-flop--to
| where now
| it was so obivious someone should have done such a simple thing LONG
| before
| them...
|
| I didn't "Flip-Flop" I know what's involved, including the million
| dollar plus expense involved in designing one configuration of a
| modular
| radio.
|
| Michael, don't let this POSEUR bother you. That
| anony-mouse "John Smith" hasn't been there, hasn't
| done it. He wants to be "Instant Guru" and wants
| a "rep" without doing any work for it. From what
| he states - all in generalities, no specifics -
| he can't think things out close to necessary detail.
|
| You were right to "plonk" him.
|
|
| You have your head up your sorry ass, and I'm through wasting time
| with your nonsense. Its obvious that you don't know a dam thing about
| design when you compare the Apple II to a real design project. You
| need
| to get an education in design and stop trying to blow smoke up
| everyone's ass.
|
| Way to go! :-)
|
| At some other time I wouldn't mind having a friendly
| argument with you on the Apple ][...but not with this
| anony-mouse hanging around trying to intrude and
| smoke up the place. I still have my 1980-purchase
| Apple ][+ and had a lot of fun with it...including
| lots of calculations (Applesoft had 10-digit
| accuracy with 5-byte FP variables, muy better than
| 4-byte single precision). I've gone into the hard-
| ware and analyzed it thoroughly, scoped it, written
| it up...submitted it as a manuscript only to find out
| Howard W. Sams was already in production on a similar
| book! :-)
|
| In many ways, the PRODUCTION version of the Apple ][
| was the forerunner of the IBM PC out of Boca Raton.
| But designed (or rather re-designed) about two years
| prior to the IBM PC. Uncanny similarity between the
| two in basic structure, expansion slots, and - yes -
| "open architecture." PRODUCTION planning went into
| the ][ and it wasn't much like the original board-
| only Apple.
|
| But, the ][ on up to the Apple //gs were terrific RF
| generators! :-) By contrast, a similar structure
| using only three main chips (CPU from Western Design,
| 64K EPROM, 64K/128K Static RAM) can be very nice and
| quiet RF wise because of the internal transistor
| structures in those chips. [I've already done a
| preliminary breadboard setup to verify that] Such a
| controller system can adapt itself to many kinds of
| "radio controller" applications without any of the
| RF coupling problems. It's been done before by the
| big three in Japan using older microcontrollers in
| many different transceivers, all without disturbing
| the receiver or the transmitter specifications.
|
| Too many of the older hams are oriented towards a
| "legacy radio" structure...mostly analog. That
| just doesn't adapt to "plug-and-play" ease of adding
| or modifying an SDR. Trying to use a common PC as
| a "model" for an SDR is a bunch of nonsense. The
| "bus" and "interface structure" is an analogue only
| the broadest sense of the term. Doesn't apply,
| either technically or organizationally.
|
|
|