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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 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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
"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. |
Don't hold your breath.
Joe |
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 |
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 |
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!) |
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 |
"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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
"some things" I have found before,I wish I had never seen before.
cuhulin |
Tell all them purty wimmins over there in Finlandia old Hansom Larry
(that's me,wimmins,Hansom Larry,email me) loves them all. cuhulin |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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. |
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 |
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 |
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. |
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 |
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 |
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I believe Drake can design a new Radio to compete.
cuhulin |
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 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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
$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 |
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 |
If it's made in Chinkland,I won't buy one anyway.
cuhulin |
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