Actually, I have a feeling this may have been a prototype for a commercial
project -- how else to explain having interfaces for all the common interface
hardware standards? At least this one isn't touting a kit of parts, or a PC
board for sale.
I'm just remembering the decision a few years ago to cut 'way down on contest
coverage because they didn't have space!
73, Pete N4ZR
At 10:49 AM 9/17/2005, Jim Lux wrote:
>At 05:00 AM 9/17/2005, Pete Smith wrote:
>>The latest QST includes a lead tech article on an automatic antenna switch
>>controller that uses a PIC and a lot of other parts on an expensive PC board
>>to switch 5 antennas either manually or in response to band data from various
>>transceivers. I must be missing something, because this seems like a LOT of
>>trouble for less capability than could be gotten from a $20 W9XT band decoder
>>card and a few added components. I know that there are some radios that
>>don't provide BCD band data, but that problem is usually dealt with by
>>running a computer program that provides the band data on an LPT port.
>>
>>For this they burn 8 pages?
>
>
>More likely, someone had a PIC development kit and wanted to develop
>something. Many a senior engineering project has been born of such
>circumstances. Or, they needed a controller, had a PIC eval kit, etc. There
>have been a lot of things I've built over the years that were needlessly
>complex, because I happened to have one of the pieces sitting around (the
>danger of going to hamfests or surplus stores...).
>
>Clearly, QST isn't oriented towards publishing construction articles of good
>quality commercial style design. I'll bet that if you ARE a decent commercial
>designer, you're busy building your product, not writing articles to submit to
>QST.
>
>Frankly, I don't envy the QST editors. I'll bet they don't get a huge number
>of even vaguely suitable articles submitted in a form close to publishable.
>Look at all the partially completed web pages out there on various projects
>(including my own). It's a huge amount of work to get it all done. Short of
>ARRL funding some professional writers (not on ARRL's budget!) to work with
>folks who have done the project, it's not likely to change. And keeping a
>monthly magazine going is a chore.. it's a beast that must be fed. As soon as
>issue N is put to bed, issue N+1 is staring you in the face.
_______________________________________________
See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather
Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions
and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|