From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.misc
Subject: Re: Can't get 10 year old radio fixed, was Re: Boycott Icom
Date: 15 Apr 92 17:05:37 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Apr14.132958.22933@porthos.cc.bellcore.com> whs70@dancer.UUCP () writes:
>
>It is an interesting aside that there are many pre-solid state 
>equipments that can be kept working well, yet we have here a situation
>where a ham has a radio that isn't all that old, it is a very
>usable radio for anyone that might have it, yet it can't be fixed because
>of the failure of a unique component that the manufacturer can't or won't
>provide.  That's NOT very good public relations for ICOM.

Many "pre-solid state" owners are soon going to be in a world of hurt
too. The last supplier of quality vacuum tubes, the former Soviet Union,
has finally stopped production. You need a 6L6? All that's left is what's
on somebody's shelf.

Technologies change so rapidly today that the cycle of obsolesence is
becoming shorter and shorter. In my business we've had to spend a lot
of money replacing perfectly satisfactory equipment because repair
parts are no longer available. Things like RTL and DTL gates. We can't
blame our equipment manufacturer, he can't get the parts anymore either.
And it wouldn't make any sense for him to attempt to stockpile parts
for a small production run because he'd wind up eating most of them,
and we'd pay for it in higher equipment cost. Just_in_time manufacturing
methods guarrantee that a manufacturer doesn't carry a large inventory
on hand that drives up his fixed cost. He depends on *his* suppliers
to replace an in house inventory system.

With the trend to custom mask programmed CPUs and custom logic arrays,
the parts situation isn't going to get any better for equipment produced
in small volume. For manufacturers like the auto industry where unit
volumes run in the millions, keeping a spare parts inventory is less
of a burden. But for a small volume producer like a supplier to the
ham or broadcast market where unit volumes are in the hundreds or 
thousands, it's an impossible task.

I believe that manufacturers should release into the public domain
the source code to discontinued custom processors and the fuse patterns 
to discontinued gate array products. That way if a person wants to repair
a piece of gear badly enough, he can engineer in a retrofit that will
replace the functionality of the no longer available part.

The fact remains, however, that the shelf life of electronics technology 
is now down to less than 5 years in many cases. It's generally not worth 
the trouble to attempt to repair something older than that because newer
and better equipment is available that is cheaper than the original. This 
isn't planned obsolesence, it's technology driven obsolesence. Try to get
parts for an 8 inch floppy drive, or get 1 kb memory chips. They just
aren't around anymore except in surplus bins. Ten years ago, they were
hot stuff.

Gary KE4ZV
From: brown@hpspkla.spk.hp.com (Pat R. Brown)
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 18:53:40 GMT
Subject: Re: 1750 Meter band
Organization: Hewlett Packard Company, Spokane, Wa.