[Elecraft] [OT] Hilberling PT-8000 cancelled.

[David Woolley (E.L)]

Simon Brown (HB9DRV) wrote:
> <div class="moz-text-flowed" style="font-family: 
> -moz-fixed">http://www.hilberling.de/news/news.htm
> 
> Thank goodness for Wayne & Eric!
> 
> Translation by Adam VA7OJ/AB4OJ
> 
> The manufacture of the PT-8000 product line has been discontinued.
> 
> Due to the constant obstacles which we must overcome in ensuring 
> compliance with EU-wide governmental regulations imposed on 
> manufacturers, we were

Unless the intent was only to sell on the Swiss market, the effect of 
EEC regulations ought to be less than without the EEC.  The point of the 
EEC regulations is that you only have to comply once, even if having to 
meet the concerns of all the members means that the regulations are a 
bit more difficult.  Without the regulations, you woudl still have 
needed to meet all the requirements, if you wanted to sell throughout 
Europe, but would have had to submit to an approval process in every 
country.  The approval requirements might even be incompatible.

Moreover, the big problem for EU amateurs is that the requirements are 
actually compromised, to meet manufacturer objections, and not well 
enforced, with the result that there is a lot of legal consumer 
equipment that causes severe RFI and also a lot of illegal equipment. 
(I believe the same happens at the US federal level, at least with 
respect to compromising EMC requirements).

> required to make constant design changes to this top-quality 
> transceiver. The very high design goals which we had set for the PT-8000 
> could be fulfilled in a few prototype units. However, guaranteeing this 
> high standard without limitations in a series production program with 
> many vendors runs into difficulties which cannot be overcome at a cost 
> level which is still acceptable.

That's a different problem.  The design wasn't reproducible and could 
not be rescued by production engineering.

-- 
David Woolley
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