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-   -   Drake (https://www.radiobanter.com/shortwave/67359-drake.html)

dxAce March 21st 05 11:43 AM

Drake
 
I just looked at the R. L. Drake site and now there is no longer a mention of
ANY shortwave receivers on their Products page.

http://www.rldrake.com/

Oh well, perhaps at some time they will again re-enter the market.

dxAce
Michigan
USA




BDK March 21st 05 12:34 PM

In article ,
says...
I just looked at the R. L. Drake site and now there is no longer a mention of
ANY shortwave receivers on their Products page.

http://www.rldrake.com/

Oh well, perhaps at some time they will again re-enter the market.

dxAce
Michigan
USA





Hmm, they don't have parts or do repairs on the R7/R7A either..

BDK

dxAce March 21st 05 12:40 PM



BDK wrote:

In article ,
says...
I just looked at the R. L. Drake site and now there is no longer a mention of
ANY shortwave receivers on their Products page.

http://www.rldrake.com/

Oh well, perhaps at some time they will again re-enter the market.

dxAce
Michigan
USA





Hmm, they don't have parts or do repairs on the R7/R7A either..


They haven't for several years.

dxAce
Michigan
USA



[email protected] March 21st 05 01:20 PM


dxAce wrote:
I just looked at the R. L. Drake site and now there is no longer a

mention of
ANY shortwave receivers on their Products page.

http://www.rldrake.com/

Oh well, perhaps at some time they will again re-enter the market.

dxAce
Michigan
USA


Yep, it sure is. No mention of shortwave. I do hope they eventually
decide to make a new receiver.

I also noticed that their product support page
(http://www.rldrake.com/tech/producthelp.html) contains a reference to
an R8E receiver. Any idea what that refers to? If you scroll down the
list, you'll see it immediately following the R8, R8A, etc.

Steve


dxAce March 21st 05 01:32 PM



wrote:

dxAce wrote:
I just looked at the R. L. Drake site and now there is no longer a

mention of
ANY shortwave receivers on their Products page.

http://www.rldrake.com/

Oh well, perhaps at some time they will again re-enter the market.

dxAce
Michigan
USA


Yep, it sure is. No mention of shortwave. I do hope they eventually
decide to make a new receiver.

I also noticed that their product support page
(http://www.rldrake.com/tech/producthelp.html) contains a reference to
an R8E receiver. Any idea what that refers to? If you scroll down the
list, you'll see it immediately following the R8, R8A, etc.


It was made for the European market and is an R8 sans some particular frequency
range. It was made for the German market, and the regulation which forced the
reduction has since been changed.

dxAce
Michigan
USA



Steve



dxAce March 21st 05 01:36 PM



wrote:

dxAce wrote:
I just looked at the R. L. Drake site and now there is no longer a

mention of
ANY shortwave receivers on their Products page.

http://www.rldrake.com/

Oh well, perhaps at some time they will again re-enter the market.

dxAce
Michigan
USA


Yep, it sure is. No mention of shortwave. I do hope they eventually
decide to make a new receiver.

I also noticed that their product support page
(http://www.rldrake.com/tech/producthelp.html) contains a reference to
an R8E receiver. Any idea what that refers to? If you scroll down the
list, you'll see it immediately following the R8, R8A, etc.


An even rarer one is the R8000... which is a rack mount R8.

http://www.dproducts.be/DRAKE_MUSEUM/r-8000.htm

dxAce
Michigan
USA



Michael Lawson March 21st 05 03:05 PM


"dxAce" wrote in message
...
I just looked at the R. L. Drake site and now there is no longer a

mention of
ANY shortwave receivers on their Products page.

http://www.rldrake.com/

Oh well, perhaps at some time they will again re-enter the market.


At least they'll still service the R8's.

--Mike L.





Joe Analssandrini March 21st 05 03:21 PM

Don't hold your breath.

Joe


patgkz March 21st 05 04:51 PM

Why would anyone "re-enter" a dying market. Receivers have dropped out of
the market as fast as the broadcasters.

Face facts: HF usage by broadcasters, commerical users, govt, military is
just about over. Someone get a gun and put this horse out of its misery.

Enjoy the bands (HF and MW) while you can, there won't be much left to
listen to in the next decade or so.


"dxAce" wrote in message
...
I just looked at the R. L. Drake site and now there is no longer a mention
of
ANY shortwave receivers on their Products page.

http://www.rldrake.com/

Oh well, perhaps at some time they will again re-enter the market.

dxAce
Michigan
USA






dxAce March 21st 05 04:59 PM



patgkz wrote:

Why would anyone "re-enter" a dying market. Receivers have dropped out of
the market as fast as the broadcasters.

Face facts: HF usage by broadcasters, commerical users, govt, military is
just about over. Someone get a gun and put this horse out of its misery.

Enjoy the bands (HF and MW) while you can, there won't be much left to
listen to in the next decade or so.


Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out! ;-)

dxAce
Michigan
USA



"dxAce" wrote in message
...
I just looked at the R. L. Drake site and now there is no longer a mention
of
ANY shortwave receivers on their Products page.

http://www.rldrake.com/

Oh well, perhaps at some time they will again re-enter the market.

dxAce
Michigan
USA





Brian Hill March 21st 05 05:25 PM

patgkz wrote:
Why would anyone "re-enter" a dying market. Receivers have dropped

out of
the market as fast as the broadcasters.

Face facts: HF usage by broadcasters, commerical users, govt,

military is
just about over. Someone get a gun and put this horse out of its

misery.

Enjoy the bands (HF and MW) while you can, there won't be much left

to
listen to in the next decade or so.


What are you smokin? Theres more radios out there than any other time
in history of mankind and with Ebay and the internet the market is
saturated. Drake and others have sold a bazillion of em to everybody,
well the market has slowed. Bi deal! Every major radio co. has quit
building radios at one time or another. And mankind will continue to
use the HF spectrum until long after were dead. Do us a favor and put
yourself out of your own misery.

--
73 and good DXing.
Brian
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A lot of radios and 100' of rusty wire!
Zumbrota, Southern MN
Brian's Radio Universe
http://webpages.charter.net/brianhill/

EMAIL-
(Hide the $100 to reply!)


Michael Lawson March 21st 05 06:13 PM

That is absolutely true!! Please, send all your soon to be
extinct radios to me!!

--Mike L.


"patgkz" wrote in message
...
Why would anyone "re-enter" a dying market. Receivers have dropped

out of
the market as fast as the broadcasters.

Face facts: HF usage by broadcasters, commerical users, govt,

military is
just about over. Someone get a gun and put this horse out of its

misery.

Enjoy the bands (HF and MW) while you can, there won't be much left

to
listen to in the next decade or so.


"dxAce" wrote in message
...
I just looked at the R. L. Drake site and now there is no longer a

mention
of
ANY shortwave receivers on their Products page.

http://www.rldrake.com/

Oh well, perhaps at some time they will again re-enter the market.

dxAce
Michigan
USA









Lucky March 21st 05 09:15 PM


"BDK" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
I just looked at the R. L. Drake site and now there is no longer a
mention of
ANY shortwave receivers on their Products page.

http://www.rldrake.com/

Oh well, perhaps at some time they will again re-enter the market.

dxAce
Michigan
USA





Hmm, they don't have parts or do repairs on the R7/R7A either..

BDK



Looks like the lazy faggot ace changed his e-mail account for this NG. Back
on ignore you POS....

Lucky



dxAce March 21st 05 09:19 PM



Lucky wrote:

"BDK" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
I just looked at the R. L. Drake site and now there is no longer a
mention of
ANY shortwave receivers on their Products page.

http://www.rldrake.com/

Oh well, perhaps at some time they will again re-enter the market.

dxAce
Michigan
USA





Hmm, they don't have parts or do repairs on the R7/R7A either..

BDK


Looks like the lazy faggot ace changed his e-mail account for this NG. Back
on ignore you POS....


Lazy faggot? Surely you jest, 'tard boy.

You just keep trying.

dxAce
Michigan
USA



[email protected] March 22nd 05 02:23 AM

Sometimes I forget when I am over at my FlowerinThWater addy when I get
back to rec.radio.shortwave news group but I always sign my postings
with,cuhulin.I have four other webtv addys too.
cuhulin


Matti Ponkamo March 22nd 05 06:49 AM

I found this:

http://www.rldrake.com/swl/index.html

73, Matti Ponkamo, Naantali, Finland


"dxAce" kirjoitti
...
I just looked at the R. L. Drake site and now there is no longer a mention
of
ANY shortwave receivers on their Products page.

http://www.rldrake.com/

Oh well, perhaps at some time they will again re-enter the market.

dxAce
Michigan
USA



dxAce March 22nd 05 11:16 AM



Matti Ponkamo wrote:

I found this:

http://www.rldrake.com/swl/index.html

73, Matti Ponkamo, Naantali, Finland


We can all find lots of things. The point was...

Ahhhhhh... forget it, I'm wasting my time.

dxAce
Michigan
USA



"dxAce" kirjoitti
...
I just looked at the R. L. Drake site and now there is no longer a mention
of
ANY shortwave receivers on their Products page.

http://www.rldrake.com/

Oh well, perhaps at some time they will again re-enter the market.

dxAce
Michigan
USA



[email protected] March 22nd 05 11:31 AM

"some things" I have found before,I wish I had never seen before.
cuhulin


[email protected] March 22nd 05 11:35 AM

Tell all them purty wimmins over there in Finlandia old Hansom Larry
(that's me,wimmins,Hansom Larry,email me) loves them all.
cuhulin


m II March 23rd 05 01:37 AM

dxAce wrote:

Looks like the lazy faggot ace changed his e-mail account for this NG. Back
on ignore you POS....



Lazy faggot? Surely you jest, 'tard boy.



Really energetic, are you? The early bird certainly gets the 'worm' in your case..

and stop sending those stupid flowers. I'm not interested.





mike

m II March 23rd 05 01:40 AM

dxAce wrote:

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out! ;-)



You prefer them unbruised, don't you, Ace?





mike

dxAce March 23rd 05 04:40 AM



m II wrote:

dxAce wrote:

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out! ;-)


You prefer them unbruised, don't you, Ace?


Well, I'm fairly certain that yours has been worked over pretty well.

Tenderized perhaps?

LMAO at the 'tard boy in CanaDuh!

dxAce
Michigan
USA



Arthur Pozner March 26th 05 03:00 PM

If this is the reason-let's wait a little and may be they will
introduce an R-8C or something else. A software defined radio...Perhaps.


Telamon March 26th 05 09:15 PM

In article ,
dxAce wrote:

WHY DISCONTINUE DRAKE R8B

Say it isn't so! The Drake R8B general coverage communications
receiver is discontinued. Tom Walsh K1TW of Boston Area DXers called
the R.L.Drake Company; "A very sympathetic Drake sales person
explained the decision was based on economics. As I understand it,
the decision to discontinue is based on several factors. (1) The
supply of parts used in the current design has dwindled to where Drake
can no longer sustain new production. (2) Therefore, in order to
maintain the R8 in their line, they would have had to redesign a
significant part of the radio because of a shortage of parts for the
older design. The engineering costs are too high to do that. (3) The
demand for HF shortwave receivers has fallen. I felt the person I
talked with at Drake was as sad as I that this day had arrived. He
understood this is still one of the finest receivers in the market at
this price." (via Bruce Conti, NRC IDXD March 25 via DXLD)


This was going to happen eventually. The receiver at some point will
have to be re-engineered to use new components even if the design
remains the same.

Generally the march of component improvement is a move to smaller and
more highly integrated parts so radios can be smaller and consume less
power for the same or better performance.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

Telamon March 26th 05 09:19 PM

In article ,
dxAce wrote:

WHY DISCONTINUE DRAKE R8B

Say it isn't so! The Drake R8B general coverage communications
receiver is discontinued. Tom Walsh K1TW of Boston Area DXers called
the R.L.Drake Company; "A very sympathetic Drake sales person
explained the decision was based on economics. As I understand it,
the decision to discontinue is based on several factors. (1) The
supply of parts used in the current design has dwindled to where Drake
can no longer sustain new production. (2) Therefore, in order to
maintain the R8 in their line, they would have had to redesign a
significant part of the radio because of a shortage of parts for the
older design. The engineering costs are too high to do that. (3) The
demand for HF shortwave receivers has fallen. I felt the person I
talked with at Drake was as sad as I that this day had arrived. He
understood this is still one of the finest receivers in the market at
this price." (via Bruce Conti, NRC IDXD March 25 via DXLD)


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.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

Mark S. Holden March 26th 05 10:34 PM

Arthur Pozner wrote:
If this is the reason-let's wait a little and may be they will
introduce an R-8C or something else. A software defined radio...Perhaps.


The R8 was introduced several years after the R7 went out of production.

My guess is if they bring out another radio they'll wait for demand to
build so the new radio starts out with strong sales.

It probably won't be called an R8c.

And if it happens, odds are it'll be a great radio.


Michael Black March 26th 05 10:48 PM


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


[email protected] March 27th 05 12:06 AM

Let's face it. Despite the fact that the R-8 series of receivers were
excellent as far as receiving goes, they were big, hot running,
inefficient, amp-eating behemoths compared to some of the more recent
receiver designs. I can understand Drake's decision and I'd be willing
to bet a year's pay you'll see no more SW receivers from Drake.

Frank
K3YAZ


Telamon March 27th 05 06:50 AM

In article .com,
wrote:

Let's face it. Despite the fact that the R-8 series of receivers were
excellent as far as receiving goes, they were big, hot running,
inefficient, amp-eating behemoths compared to some of the more recent
receiver designs. I can understand Drake's decision and I'd be willing
to bet a year's pay you'll see no more SW receivers from Drake.


How long is that bet good for?

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

[email protected] March 27th 05 09:07 AM

I believe Drake can design a new Radio to compete.
cuhulin


Michael A. Terrell March 27th 05 10:04 AM

Michael Black wrote:

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.

--
?

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

jimg March 28th 05 06:27 AM

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.


jimg
Oregon
USA

Telamon March 28th 05 10:39 AM

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

[email protected] March 28th 05 12:40 PM

Last year,I ought a Linksys Wireless B Music System intenet radio.(want
proof? Come see for yourself) I can use it wirelessly or tetherd to my
computer,I keep it tetherd because that is my choice. www.linksys.com
OK,what is the advantage or disavantage of useing a shortwave radio
connected to a computer? I don't see myself ever useing a shortwave
radio connected to my computer.But,who knows? Someday I might.
cuhulin


Michael A. Terrell March 28th 05 10:26 PM


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



My thoughts would be to see about designing new boards to fit the
existing chassis, and then see about new features like reduced power
consumption and computer interface for remote control, up or downloading
memories or logging frequencies you listened to without adding them to
the preset memories. The VLF could be replaced with a DDS that could
tune in the current 10 Hz as well as 1 Hz to tweak SSb signals. Maybe
add an input for a frequency standard for serious users so it's within 1
Hz at 30 MHz and a buffered IF out to drive an optional spectrum
display. I worked on $10,000 to $80,000 radios and some of the older
designs had been in production for over 10 years. Circuit boards went
from through hole to surface mount, the Op amps were replaced with newer
parts and overall tolerance of some parts went from 10% and 5% to 1% and
..1% to make the boards interchangeable without a lot of extra work.
Hard to find polypropylene caps were replaced with SMD ceramics and the
overall power consumption went down.


The important question would be, are there many customers left to buy
a brand new top notch receiver?

--
?

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Telamon March 29th 05 04:27 AM

In article ,
"Michael A. Terrell" wrote:

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



My thoughts would be to see about designing new boards to fit the
existing chassis, and then see about new features like reduced power
consumption and computer interface for remote control, up or downloading
memories or logging frequencies you listened to without adding them to
the preset memories. The VLF could be replaced with a DDS that could
tune in the current 10 Hz as well as 1 Hz to tweak SSb signals. Maybe
add an input for a frequency standard for serious users so it's within 1
Hz at 30 MHz and a buffered IF out to drive an optional spectrum
display. I worked on $10,000 to $80,000 radios and some of the older
designs had been in production for over 10 years. Circuit boards went
from through hole to surface mount, the Op amps were replaced with newer
parts and overall tolerance of some parts went from 10% and 5% to 1% and
.1% to make the boards interchangeable without a lot of extra work.
Hard to find polypropylene caps were replaced with SMD ceramics and the
overall power consumption went down.


Surface mount is the way to go and 1% tolerance parts are inexpensive
and good enough for a radio. Todays ceramic capacitors are a good value,
very stable and long lived. The problem is the analog IC's for
amplifiers, limiters, led drivers and other functions that go out of
style in a few years time.

The important question would be, are there many customers left to buy
a brand new top notch receiver?


The $64,000 question.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

[email protected] March 29th 05 04:55 AM

$80,000 Radios? Please tell us more.What was/is so special about $80,000
Radios.What are the special features and performance of such $80,000
Radios? I do not believe ANY radio in the World is worth $80,000 unless
it is made of solid Gold.
cuhulin


jimg March 29th 05 05:45 AM

the idea would not be to design by committee, but rather to define a
feature set, and then a spec set.

the truth is, as i would be doing the design and paying for additional
devleopment tools, boards, etc, i guess the buck would stop
here....but if there aren't enough interested people in helping to put
it on track and answer questions about design decisions and
directions, this would just end up being another man's radio (which is
alright for me) , or another man's enhancements of an older radio....

someone suggested basing it on the r8....what i was talking about was
forgeting about all the previous radios in specific, and using your
vast collective experience with all those radios and the invested
years and years of sw listening to figure out what you really want....

my intent is a dx radio without compare and without the cost....which
is the reason for the laptop....displays and display related design
changes, software/firmware updates, these are alot easier with a
processor and a display interface already designed....it figure this
is going to take me about a year fulltime to get to a working
prototype, maybe a bit longer. i intend to cheat and use micro basic
to craft the display (there will be no signal processing on the
laptop, and an optical link to prevent xtalk). that means you can play
and have fun making your own pretty pictures. i was also thinking of
talking to friends at the mathworks so as to have a set of matlab
modules for display processing.. it may not be pretty but it'll work
well....



jimg
Oregon
USA

[email protected] March 29th 05 06:27 AM

If it's made in Chinkland,I won't buy one anyway.
cuhulin


Mark S. Holden March 29th 05 06:55 AM

wrote:
$80,000 Radios? Please tell us more.What was/is so special about $80,000
Radios.What are the special features and performance of such $80,000
Radios? I do not believe ANY radio in the World is worth $80,000 unless
it is made of solid Gold.
cuhulin


Here's one reputed to have cost in that range. It's an Applied
Communications (aka Norlin or Aiken) Sr-2150.

http://users.adelphia.net/~msholden/SR2150Applzoom.jpg

It's a wideband receiver that covers from 20mhz-1200 mhz with no gaps.
It has a signal monitor that uses a plasma display. You can tune to any
signal that turns up on the display very quickly. It weighs about 70
pounds, and it was built by hand. The engineering costs were probably
spread over very few units.

It's also fun to use. (Though the cooling fan scares the heck out of
one of my cats)

I understand they were built for the NSA.



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