[Boatanchors] Today's gear in 2055?

[Sheldon Daitch]

There is a parallel between the below concern and our experience
with modern day broadcast equipment.  Not withstanding the
issues of equipment reliability in a 24/7 operation, the
energy savings from today's modern equipment and the tax
ramifications of depreciation, none of these generally are of
concern to the ham/boat anchor area, I submit that it will almost
be impossible to maintain a large fleet of today's equipment
50 years from now.

We recently retired, finally, a megawatt MW transmitter that
had been in operation from 1953 to about 1997, relegated to
backup operation until early this year, and then back into the
full operation while the new transmitter was relocated to
a new building and antenna array a few hundred yards away.

Virtually every part in the old Continental transmitter, including
the tubes, can be fabricated or rebuilt, or we happened to have
large stocks of repair parts held over the past 50 years.

The newer transmitter, all solid state, but at the same power,
relies on software and firmware for proper operation and I
suspect at some point, we will be unable to get small parts
for it.  Already, one major A/D - D/A chip is unavailable and
a replacement module board for that stage has been marketed by
the transmitter manufacturer.

I submit we will probably get into the same situation with
equipment in the nature of the IC-7800, unless there happens to
be a pool of excessed units is maintained as parts bins for
a decreasing operational "fleet" of 7800s.  I realize this is not
much different than parts for today's 50 year old gear, but so
many components used in our boat anchors can be fabricated
or replaced with newer discrete components.  Unless there is
a hugh demand for repair parts or someone with big bucks can
reverse engineer specialized ICs used in today's equipment,
even the 7800 might not be around, other than display units.

The technology is moving too fast, me thinks.

73
Sheldon
WA4MZZ



>
> > On 9/27/05, peter markavage <manualman at juno.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Vic wrote - "Will anyone bother to restore an IC7800 in 2055?"
> >>
> >>Many people who believe in this technology probably would see no reason
> >>to "restore"; they just move on to the next technology.
> >>
> >>Pete, wa2cwa