In article ,
jimg wrote:

jimg wrote:

I understand that the engineering costs to update any of these
receivers (like the icom r-75 and the drake r8b) is prohibitive. None
of these companies can afford to develop custom IC's, and in the last
few years many of the companies like analog devices, maxim, philips,
toshiba, and sony have discontinued the processes that these basic
comm functions were implemented with.

The prevalence of dsp processsors, high frequency high resolution
sigma delta adc's, even progrmmable sige vga's with more than enough
bandwidth to be used as rf front ends for HF alter the entire design
approach. In a few more years, adc's able to digitize the hf rf will
be affordable.

It's getting so attractive, that I've been thinking of designing a
very high performance hf radio using the current generation of ic's,
especially those used for wireless and datacomm applications to date
The majority of the design will be the firmware development.

Of course, it makes sense to rely on your laptop for a display.

I think the real challenge is to create / compile a detailed
spec/feature list to drive the development. I don't know if hf radio
developments to date poll their consumers, but it would be great to
create a pareto list of features not from a few but from hundreds of
knbowledgable devotees followed with a carefully detailed set of
performance specifications... with design tools like Spectre RF and
system simulation in Simulink, the radio can be built behavioraly
and checked out long before soldering.

Would people be willing to put in the time to carefully think and
document what they want in a radio? Would they be willing to continue
to review and participate in the development? Over a period of half a
year or more? And do you think there are 100+ who would be able to
contribute effectively?


Telamon ) writes:

Summary:
There is not enough of a market for them to recover their engineering
costs, which must occur due to a parts shortage for the current design.

If the market improves then they may jump back in with a new design.

And of course, this has happened before. Drake was out of the receiver
business from about the mid-eighties (when they dropped the R7 and
any ham equipment) to when they introduced the R8 in the early nineties.

Drake is actually a faily old company at this point. They were around
with accessories before the introduced the 1 in the late fifties, had
a couple of decades of selling shortwave receivers and amateur transmitting
gear, and then dropped it continuing on with satellite receiver equipment.
Their website now talks about a lot of commercial grade equipment, so
the company doesn't seem to be going anywhere, even if it is dropping
shortwave receivers. If they were only making shortwave receivers,
one could imagine they'd not have lasted so long. Most of the old
time receiver manufacturers that went out of business in the late sixties
or early seventies suffered elsewhere, which meant they couldn't afford
to keep the shortwave business going.

Michael


I wonder if they would sell the design to a small company to update
and sell under a different name? I was involved in a number of receiver
redesigns due to obsolete parts when while I worked at Microdyne.

This is a nice dream but design by committee would be tough. Plenty of
people like myself would not want a laptop connected to the radio. I
would want a stand alone operational radio. Connecting the laptop for
additional displays like spectral would be OK as long as the radio
operates by itself.

Starting out with the abilities of an all round capable R8B would be a
good start for a feature set.

How would such a project be managed?

--
Telamon
Ventura, California