The smallest amount a PCB house will accept here in Silicon Valley is
about $2000. Even for a handful of simple boards (customers supplies
the artwork). Show me a house that will make a one-off for $27! Give
me their contact info and I'll give them some business!
Michael
--- Jim Strohm <jstrohm@texas.net> wrote:
> WYsixK <wy6k@yahoo.com> says--
>
> >Now I read this again and realize that Steve Katz mentioned the ways
> in
> >which the RFE amps failed to meet FCC requirements. So is the issue
> >not that the FCC dislikes kits per se but that the kits that are
> >offered do not meet FCC requirements?
> >
> >I checked out the Communications Concepts web site and see that the
> PCB
> >for their 1000 watt solid state amp is $27. What's outrageous about
> >that?
>
>
> Do you know what fabricated PCBs cost, even in short runs?
>
> With the art work in hand, I could go to a custom board house and
> have
> one-off boards custom-made for less than what CCI is asking. In a
> quantity
> run, the price would fall well below two dollars a board very
> quickly.
>
> And -- did you happen to check the price of the active devices for
> that
> 1000-watt CCI amp? You probably will not believe me when I tell you
> that
> it's over $900.
>
> On the other hand -- most of the RFE amps use the 2SC2879 device,
> which
> sells in small-handful quantities at about $15. each. Properly
> biased and
> heatsinked, these are good for 100 watts each all day long.
>
> So on the one hand you've got CCI selling amps made from expensive,
> hard-to-power, hard-to-cool Motorola devices, and on the other hand
> you've
> got RFE selling amps made from cheap, easy-to-power, easy-to-cool
> Japanese
> devices.*
>
> The RFE amp goes straight out the door and under the dash of a semi
> for
> about 20% of the cost of the CCI amp -- which requires some
> relatively
> sophisticated work to power up.
>
> Are you starting to get a clue about the political and societal
> ramifications of the RFE decision?**
>
> I've never advocated the unlawful use of amps on 11 meters. However,
> I've
> never completely agreed with how the FCC chose to close the 27 MHz
> barn
> doors after all the horses ran off in the mid 1970s. That appalling
> lack
> of enforcement was mirrored in the FCC's laissez-faire attitude about
> the
> ham bands until only a few years ago. Fortunately, we hams are a
> little
> bit better at self-regulation than the CBers, except for maybe on a
> few
> narrow slivers of the phone bands.
>
> Jim N6OTQ
>
> * You need to see the inside of a Texas Star 667.*** And THEN
> explore the
> reasons why you can legally buy this and other Texas Star radios
> legally,
> and why they're all FCC type accepted.
>
> ** And what about the FCC's decision to add 17 CB channels in 1977, a
> choice that put Hy-Gain out of business at a time when we could not
> afford
> to hemorrhage any more jobs to Japan, Inc.?
>
> *** And then compare THAT to the inside of an Ameritron ALS600.
>
>
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