>Furthermore, as perhaps in the case of an FT-920 I owned, the rig obtained
>may not meet factory specs, unbeknownst to the purchaser. In other words,
>the ham could be attributing certain faults to a model generically when in
>fact the specific rig under evaluation is defective. This means, ideally,
>that two or three samples of each model (ugh!) should be evaluated before
>reaching a conclusion.
Alas, to my knowledge, no one doing testing looks at more than a sample of one.
The ARRL Lab ends up spending about 20-30 test hours on a major rig and it
really
isn't possible to do complete testing on more than one. We do sometimes look at
a few other samples, from staff equipment to one borrowed for a few hours from
a local dealer. If we find anything interesting, it is put up in the expanded
test result
reports.
In the ones I have looked at, I have seen significant variation in things like
dynamic range and the like.
73,
Ed Hare, W1RFI
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