[Elecraft] OT: more Woodpecker pix (not birds)

[N2EY at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/10/07 9:35:25 PM Eastern Daylight Time, k2asp at kanafi.org 
writes:


> On Sat, 9 Jun 2007 21:30:57 EDT, N2EY at aol.com wrote:
> 
> >The Soviets used tubes in their electronics back then.
> >because their available industrial resources couldn't
> >make and support solid-state electronics of the type needed.
> 
> >They could have imported all the solid-state devices needed,
> >but they decided it was more important not to become
> >dependent on foreign technology.
> 
>   The reason that I heard was that tube technology was far more
>   EMP-survivable than the solid-state designs of the time.
> 
> 

Hello Phil,

As I understood it, solid state *systems* could be made as EMP-survivable as 
tube stuff, even then. But that meant using protection devices - more stuff 
that had to be imported. It also meant dependence on foreign techniques. 

The Soviets had done plenty of reverse-engineering, such as their copy of the 
B-29 that was such an exact copy of an interred US plane that it included 
things like replicating the interior paint scheme, which was two-toned because 
the factory ran out of one color and substituted another, and minor mistakes 
like a 1/16" hole that served no purpose at all.

This actually ties into another thread - the one about the Elecraft source 
code, and its not being openly available.

It seems to me that Elecraft is doing the right thing by not releasing it. 
For one thing, they've made revisions so readily available that it's no big 
deal, and with the K3 it will be even easier. More important, though, keeping the 
code under wraps prevents cloning/copying of the Elecraft design, which would 
otherwise be pretty easy to do because almost all of the parts are standard 
catalog items. 

73 de Jim, N2EY


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