[Elecraft] MFJ's new Internal K3 Tuner, anyone tried one yet?

[Fred Jensen]

Sorry Joe, I almost never disagree with your take on things but ...  my 
company lawyers always told me that engineering a design which copies or 
even draws from a copyrighted design [schematic, manual, software, etc] 
is truly dicey, the dicey-ness of which is often plays out in a 
courtroom at great expense to everyone except the lawyers.  Patent 
involvement, or even the suggestion of it, cubes the coefficient of 
dicey-ness.

This is clearly something one could do by duplicating the schematics but 
I wonder, "What were they thinking?"  Elecraft will do what they choose 
to do, I believe their manuals and schematics have a copyright notice, 
but I won't guess.  I have the KAT3, it's a non-issue for me.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 50th Running of the Cal QSO Party 3-4 Oct 2015
- www.cqp.org

On 5/12/2015 4:25 PM, Joe Subich, W4TV wrote:

> Nothing dicey about it ... MFJ doesn't even need to know anything
> about the tuning algorithms or controls.  The K3 CPU controls both
> the tuner L/C values and the antenna selection via a serial bus
> and series of serial to parallel shift registers/latches.  The only
> "engineering" MFJ needed to do was copy Elecraft's KAT3 schematic.
> The only "value engineering" is to do what Elecraft does at lower
> production costs and perhaps loser cost parts.
>
> The real question is the ethics (and legality) of copying Elecraft's
> schematic.  The only way the MFJ tuner works properly is if it copies
> the L/C values and controls exactly.
>
> 73,
>
>    ... Joe, W4TV
>
>
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