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Re: [TowerTalk] RFC400

To: "Tower and HF antenna construction topics." <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] RFC400
From: jimlux <jimlux@earthlink.net>
Reply-to: "Tower and HF antenna construction topics." <towertalk@contesting.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:02:25 -0800
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Jim Brown wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:08:45 -0500, Kurt Cathcart, KR2C wrote:
> 
>> Here is a link to the spec sheet for the cable.
>> http://www.shireeninc.com/images/cables/coaxcable-sheet.pdf
> 
>> It appears to me like it's the same as the Times product and the vendor 
>> tells me it is made in the same factory.  I know it's all just numbers 
>> on paper so I'm looking to see if anybody has any experience with it.
> 
> It is a fairly comprehensive spec sheet. The questions are 1) Who is 
> Shireen?  I've never heard of them. 

But Jim, you HAVE heard of them <grin> (but like the rest of us, our 
memories aren't as good as google's, especially for back in 2008)

http://lists.contesting.com/_towertalk/2008-03/msg00500.html
and your post http://lists.contesting.com/_towertalk/2008-03/msg00519.html

So at least we know that Shireen has been in business for 2 years, 
minimum (actually longer, since Steve Maki commented that he had used 
their products).

Comments back then are basically the same as today.. Anyone can publish 
a spec sheet or reference a MIL-C-17 slash sheet. Anyone can make 
something that resembles the description.  What it comes down to is like 
any other commodity: consistency of product, convenience and 
availability, etc.  Small companies can and do produce things better 
(and worse) than big companies.  Big companies tend to be more 
consistent in their products (good bad or indifferent), because that's 
how you get to be a big company. If you've got 1000 people making coax, 
then if one gets hit by a bus on the way to work, the other 999 pretty 
much can continue without any issues.  If you've got 3 people making 
coax, and one gets hit by a bus, you might have just "lost the recipe".

This applies to semiconductor devices too..There's a particularly low 
leakage, low noise JFET available, with a JEDEC 2N number (that I can't 
remember,2n4416?).  But folks who care want only the ones made by some 
smallish company in England, where there's one guy who "knows the 
recipe". If he retires/dies/whathaveyou, I doubt anyone else will be 
able to duplicate the performance.

Ditto for ultra high performance crystal oscillators. There's a few 
folks at Bliley who know how to put the crystal into the holder and seal 
it.  They learned how back in the 60s when Transit was being developed, 
and there's nobody else who can duplicate it. When Bliley gets the 
order, these few (now elderly) folks get the call to come in for a few 
days, fire up the torches, and do it.,
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