[Premium-Rx] FCC Radio Gear

[wglevy]

The fact that ICOM and Yaesu have not made commercial  or professional grade
radios misses a point.
RACAL, WJ, and HARRIS are out of the biz of making this stuff
because those other non professional outfits made em cheaper and good
enough.

Let me add another thing. I have spent part of my life making wildlife films
and I have installed these
japanese toys in my land rovers and I have rained on them, and filled them
with dust, and given them
river baths and they never quit working. That was a huge eye opener for me.
I couldn't believe it, I bet against it.
I took one spare radio for every vehicle and I never used them. What did
break? The 102 inch whip by Antenna
Specialists fed by an ICOM Tuner. What didn't break? The ICOM Whip supplied
with the tuner.

Further when I started out there were American outfits making SW radios for
the bush nations
like SWAN, SOUTHCOM and KACHINA, HARRIS so the outback rancher could keep in
touch
with whomever. Those radios are now made by ICOM YAESU and KENWOOD. Doesn't
mean
that the Harris's I supplied out there aren't still working. Just means they
can't compete on price
and no one is complaining that the radios are smaller and run directly on 12
volts and have automatic
tuners.

So as much as we love them let us love their faults too as they love ours.
The Ten Tec radios are really hot.
Its the propagation that stinks!

Bill N2WL


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Sig346 at netscape.net>
To: ""Geoff Fors"" <wb6nvh at mbay.net>; <premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org>
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2004 8:11 AM
Subject: RE: [Premium-Rx] FCC Radio Gear


> 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 do 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" <wb6nvh at mbay.net> 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 vehicles, 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-topic with it !
> >
> >Geoff Fors
> >
>
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