Roger said;
>It takes little searching through older Yaesu radio models on the net to
find that they used many solid state components that were near the end of
life cycle which would have made supporting them after new models came out
problematic at best. <
This is likely to happen whenever integrated circuits, other than perhaps
standard logic families, are used.
With the experience of some 28 years in the semics industry, I say it will be
more and more likely to happen that spares just cannot be obtained. Whenever an
ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) is used, continiuity of supply
is a problem. So much so that at the company at which I work, the UK Government
has funded keeping people on for 5 years who otherwise have been laid off, to
support special military ASICs made in low volumes!
So an old rig full of discrete transistors has a better chance of being kept
going....another reason to keep my FT102..
The UK military HF/VHF system called Clansman had integrated circuits
especially designed for it - some of them became the Plessey Semiconductors
SL600 series, which were also used in various US mil projects, such as the the
PRC104 HF man pack from Hughes. When in 1982, Plessey stopped making some of
the more specialist devices for Clansman ( those on a gold doped process), a
'last buy' put spares in one warehouse. A susbequent fire wiped those
out.......I gather that the Clansman radios are now being cannibalised to
provide a number of radios and spares to sell to various African armies. But
without the availability of spare ICs, it seems a bit dodgy to me. The same
applies to modern amateur radios.
Too much 'unobtainium'.
The semiconductor industry likes to see 'design to total obsolence' in five
years. There are times when one wonders if they want that to apply to the
employees, too, because it sure seems like it.
73
Peter G3RZP
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