[R-390] Cap Question

[John Lawson]

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 Flowertime01 at wmconnect.com wrote:

> Fellow's
>
> This is a military receiver.
> It has / had a logistic support system that spans the planet.
> As many common parts are used as possible.

[snip]

> The driving factors are logistic cost not electronic design.


   The Work I do (in order to have the money to buy heavy old radio gear!) 
is involved with the refurbishment and modification of ground support gear 
for military aircraft.

   The actual cost the electronic/mechanical work is in many cases the 
least of the burden on the project - what must also be considered, as 
Roger points out, is the logistics, the supply-chain blizzard of 
paperwork, the required changes to *all* the pubs and docs amd 
drawings/illustrations associated (they must all be in a standard, 
prescribed format), the various calibration and maintenance procedures, 
nomenclature changes, and then there's the *training* issues - the 
responsible folks in the field need to be brought up to speed on any 
significant changes - operators, repair folks, cal-labs the various course 
syllabi need to be updated, the trainers trained....

   That's why a 10-32 3/4 cad-plated Phillips pan-head screw can cost $14 
each....  not that that's a *good* thing, but factor in all the costs.

   An R390A is just one radio - think of the costs of a battleship - every 
part, every fitting has it's own *coordinated* system of information and 
logistics, every subassembly, of every major component...

   The mind fair boggles....  well, mine does at any rate!   ;}


Cheers

John  KB6SCO