Imported Ham Radios (WAS - Re: [Icom] Relays)

[Jerry Flanders]

This is one of those "glass is only half full" thingies. The radio 
equipment we get nowadays is IMO phenomenal, and the price is incredibly 
low for those features. I started buying my radio stuff 50 years ago when 
the Viking II kit W/O VFO at about $200 was the latest and greatest. You 
figure out what that would be in today's dollars and compare it to a modern 
radio.

Of course they design primarily for their own market (and compatibility 
with their own power AMPs). They don't have 220 MHz, so we don't get that 
either. When I think about what the little 706MK2g in my truck can do, and 
how really inexpensive it is, I almost envy guys starting out in the hobby 
today.

I am not sure, but would guess that the inflation-adjusted price of the 
IC-2100H with TT microphone is probably cheaper than just a simple 
microphone cost 50 years ago.

Jerry W4UK

At 05:51 PM 2/18/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>Let me say this also.
>For the last 15 years the three big Japanese manufacturers have sold radios
>(the first I remember is the TS930) to be used with HEATHKIT AMERITRON and
>DRAKE amplifiers, using a relay they know it will not curry the current, and
>they still sell them, and we still buy them.
>ICOM America YAESU and KENWOOD have done nothing about it.
>They also sell mobile radios designed for the Japanese market with the
>microphone on the driver side for them, (they drive on the left, so the
>driver sits on the right) but not for us.
>We still buy them and no one has said something.
>Does any one think it is right to have three different microphone plugs for
>radios that might be called to be used in an emergency, where you might have
>to use microphone X on rig Y?.
>Whose fault is it?
>
>WA1WLA
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Jerry W. O'Dell" <jwodell@provide.net>
>To: <icom@mailman.qth.net>
>Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 4:05 PM
>Subject: [Icom] Relays
>
>
> > I would say this, but it would offend someone:
> >
> > Anyone who hooks an amp up to a modern rig, with the amplifier pulling
> > more than 10 milliamperes is simply asking for trouble.
> >
> > But, as I say, it would offend someone. So I will withdraw it!
> >
> >
> > 73 jerry w8gnd
> >