[Premium-Rx] FCC Radio Gear

Fri Dec 10 11:45:13 EST 2004

Bu extrapolation, I suppose they should be driving Ferrari's too?

Sincerely,

Dr. William J. Schmidt, II  K9HZ
Trustee of the North American QRO - Central Division Club - K9ZC

"Collector of Edison Wind-up Phonographs... Do you have one for me?"
Email: bill at wjschmidt.com
Alternate Email: wmschmidt at charter.net
WebPage: www.wjschmidt.com

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: IPAssets 
  To: Sig346 at netscape.net ; premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org 
  Sent: Friday, December 10, 2004 10:23 AM
  Subject: RE: [Premium-Rx] FCC Radio Gear

  Dear All

  I agree completely. The FCC is a shadow of its former self, a subject that both angers and saddens me greatly. Their offices in DC are essentially a mausoleum as well.
  Deregulation and the FCC did not work--big business loves it, the American people don't get it. The demise of the VOA and the USIA is another pathetic situation, but I won't go there either.

  John England

  Sig346 at netscape.net wrote:
    Gentlemen,

    neither ICOM nor YEASU have ever made professional grade receivers
    or transceivers apart from some cheap aircomms and marines.

    In my opinion it would be definitely a lack of taste mixing
    WJ8718 with their stuff like R75, PRC100 or FRG7700.

    Well,
    I know that many on the list are hams who like YEASU and ICOM transceivers,
    but again, they are designed exclussively for hams and featured
    as hightech toys. The companies know that and never claimed
    their transceivers or receivers had been designed for professional use.

    The fact that FCC used or use them explaines their financial
    situation (renting satellites and buying nice cars for top managenent
    eats all the money they have) and their priorities: short wave
    spectrum management is probaly on place 8126 on their priority
    list. If the consumer grate technology can d! o the job, no
    problem.

    The situation is not that unique: remomed companies
    like Rockwell Collins and Cubic use AR3000A as a building block
    in their DF: their own receivers are simply too expensive
    for low end government products - aimed, say for FCC.

    But we must not forget WHO IS WHO in this world...

    Regards,
    Anatol

    "Geoff Fors" wrote:

    >I have received a great deal of e-mail off-list about this subject and also there have been some further postings to the list in the last 24 hours, so I will try to summarize what I have learned about the present FCC receiver inventory:
    >
    >The receivers I saw in use at the now unmanned Livermore, Calif. FCC facility were the Icom R75. They are equipped with the CT17 option for remote control/level conversion. I know, it wasn't really fair of me to call them "consumer grade" receivers and I hope no one other than Icom took offense at that, but after all, they are inexpensive, unimpressive looking and not really in the same class as a Watkins Johnson 8618.
    >
    >I am informed by people working with the FCC that the stations are also using R7000, R7100 and a few PC1000 receivers. I don't know what they are doing with them but I also saw a wide variety of lower priced receivers piled up in FCC storage such as the Yaesu FRG-7700 and a Kenwood 1980's era receiver whose model # escapes me at the moment.
    >
    >The majority of Watkins Johnson receivers still in use are 8618B's, and they are in the process of adding 432 or 488 interface cards to those to allow remote operation. The vehicles are getting smaller and as a result the bigger W-J receivers are being replaced by Miniceptor 8607 units (and I suspect digital recording equipment as well.) I was also informed that some of the Watkins Johnson FCC equipment is being transferred to the US Border Patrol.
    >
    >I am afraid of spinning off topic by discussing the v! ehicles, even though it appears a lot of us are fascinated by them as well. Just as the British have train spotter hobbyists, we may need to start an "FCC spotter" reflector. There seems to be a wide variety of FCC trucks, SUV's, RV's, vans, and decrepit Chevrolet police model Caprices still out there.
    >
    >Thanks to the people who added their comments and to those kind folks who aren't members of the list but monitor the digests and contacted me directly. I didn't mention you by name since some of you are associated with the FCC and may prefer to remain anonymous !
    >
    >By the way, regarding the Echelon system question that was just posted. Not at the FCC facility I am familiar with. Echelon is run by the NSA, at least theoretically, and involves a huge amount of equipment intended to monitor telephone and common-carrier traffic, not primarily HF and VHF communications. I would dearly love to comment on Echelon further, but I had better not or I will drift off-t! opic with it !
    >
    >Geoff Fors
    >

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