Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!wmartin From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) Newsgroups: net.analog Subject: Re: Re: Electronics wearing out Message-ID: <11346@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Fri, 28-Jun-85 10:23:54 EDT Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.11346 Posted: Fri Jun 28 10:23:54 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 2-Jul-85 06:09:53 EDT References: <2663@decwrl.UUCP> <508@edison.UUCP>, <172@almsa-1> <221@unccvax.UUCP> Organization: USAMC ALMSA Lines: 43 > Just out of curiosity, why on God's green earth would it be required > to make three models of a general coverage receiver in the first place? > Wouldn't it be cheaper even still to have just one mask set for one lousy > CPU, to go from 100 kc/s to 29.999 mc/s, avoiding the service/reprogramming > issue entirely? > > David Anthony I certainly agree that having just one model would be better, and I wish that were possible for Icom (and every other manufacturer). If all the rest of the world were like the US, it would be. However, the two variants I mentioned originally (German and Australian) are different because of these reasons: The Deutsche Bundespost has some asinine and offensive restrictions on receivers, nominally meant to keep public-service & police, etc. transmissions private, and justified on the grounds of anti-terrorism (ignoring the obvious fact that terrorists that can get illegal guns and explosives can certainly get any electronics they want!). This means that "E-suffix" models ("E" for "European") of shortwave receivers have to cut off their coverage at 26.1 MHz (or so) at the top end, for German sales. (We had a net.ham-radio discussion about this a few months ago, by the way.) The Australian customs regulations charge a much higher duty on receivers that tune below 2 MHz, probably to impose taxes on consumer radios that cover the AM Broadcast Band. Cutting the coverage off at 2 MHz on those saves the Australian customer quite a bit, and probably means that Icom can sell a lot more radios in Australia than they otherwise would at the higher price (which would just be income to Customs, not to Icom anyway). These sorts of restrictions *should* be implemented with internal jumpers that the consumer could cut to restore full coverage operation, not by differently-programmed circuits or the like that are difficult for the non-technical to overcome. That way the offensive government-imposed restrictions can be bypassed, but the end-user does not have to suffer their effects. Regards, Will Martin ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA UUCP/Usenet: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin