Headset.continum

[RKILE at delphi.com]

One final word....
    May I Please put this headset thing truely into perspective.The modern
day tranceiver is truely a work of art. It is a homogenized blend of the
past and the future. If it were not for manufacturing technology and shrewd
skills of adapting consumer electronics to this specialized field your
bloody FT-1000's would sell for $25,000 based on average inflation and the
punny size of the high priced market. I would estimate that worldwide to
this date there are perhaps 2000 to 3000 units actually in amateur hands.
    If I were a manufacturer and, 99% of the headphones available second
source were of the high-efficiency type I would use the same type of
consumer audio amp as did YAESU......
    The problem here is that one manufacturer (second source) made an
incorrect assumption that headphone audio levels of several hundred
milliwatts would last forever! While the consumer audio industry had
determined that 100mw was more than sufficient based on the majority of
modern headphone designs to produce 110-115 db spl in close coupling
designs. This mostly because those political correct watchdogs had
determined that we were all making ourselves deaf!
    The solution is plain and simple. As they exist the HEIL-PROSETS are
not sufficiently compatible with the FT-1000..A note should be enclosed with
each one stating just that. Furthermore, if enough market truely exists then 
Mr Heil should offer a modified version, with enough real profit to
compensate him for his efforts.-------------
    I highly regard Mr. Heil for his improvements in cabling and
connectors.The transmitted audio is superb and speaks for itself. If the
above solution isn't plauseble, there is a KOSS factory in Milwaukee. Ask
them if they have any KPL-4 drivers laying around..or... checkout your
TARGET store. If they'll work with your "Walkman", they'll work with your
YAESU.....The prices will surprise you.


Bob, KG7D       

>From stevem at w8hd.org (steve k8lx)  Thu May 19 05:50:51 1994
From: stevem at w8hd.org (steve k8lx) (steve k8lx)
Date: Thu, 19 May 94 00:50:51 EDT
Subject: ELEVATED RADIALS
Message-ID: <9405190450.AA25220 at w8hd.org>

>ITS THAT TIME of year when I start thinking about antenna projects but dont 
>do anything until the week before the contest. Ive been reading about elevated
>radials and wonder about peoples experiences.  Specifically how high for 160
>/80 ? and has anyone slanted them like Crisman's  (sic)research showed would
>work.
>
>I should mention Im at a new QTH and would like to avoid copper plating the
yard
>if possible.  Ill summaraize results if people are interested.
>tnx Dan 
>___________________________________________________________
>|                DAN KOVATCH                              |
>|                  W8CAR                                  |
>|                                                         |
>|        PEMS_st_dk at noeca.oecn.ohio.gov                   |
>|         REAL RADIOS GLOW IN THE DARK                    |
>|_________________________________________________________|_
>
> 
>
I think you can think of it like this:

The more you slant the radials, the fewer of them you need because the
1/4 wave antenna starts looking like a 1/2 wave vertical dipole, a very
desirable antenna, because of its great efficiency and no ground system
required. (Not to mention more gain and lower takeoff angle)

Of course, you need a taller tower, but a good compromise would be a
feedpoint say 1/8 wave above ground and 4 or 6 radials sloping down from there.

An even better solution is to hang 3 sloping 1/2 wave dipoles spaced equally
around a tower (hopefully at least .35 or .4 wavelengths tall)
with the top half of each dipole sloping at around 30 deg and the bottom 
half pulled out to wherever you need to (dictated by tower height and lot
size. Feed one antenna at a time thru a relay box, and presto, you have
essentially half wave vertical performance in the wanted direction with some
rejection off the back on receive. This is a loud antenna.
--
Steve Maki K8LX
stevem at w8hd.org


>From John W. Brosnahan" <broz at csn.org  Thu May 19 16:06:21 1994
From: John W. Brosnahan" <broz at csn.org (John W. Brosnahan)
Date: Thu, 19 May 1994 09:06:21 -0600
Subject: KG7D and Yaesu FT-1000 audio--final transmission
Message-ID: <199405191506.AA18984 at teal.csn.org>

Bob, I agree with you on most of your points and both Yaesu and Heil have
fine products if their limitations are understood.
 
But there has been a de facto industry standard on headphone audio levels
that all manufacturers have adhered to, including Yaesu, up until the
FT-1000.  And this was using the speaker amp to drive the headphones.  The
speaker amplifier is good for a couple of watts at 8 ohms and would drive
any set of headphones, old or new.  When Yaesu brought out the FT-1000
with the dual receiver they unilateraly made an engineering decision to
go with a new standard that would allow only the newer, low-impedance
headphones to be used.  This means that many headphones that had worked fine
on other Yaesu radios would not work on the FT-1000, so possibly Yaesu
is the one who should include a warning label with the radio indicating 
that you can no longer use your older headphones. 
 
The audio level of the FT-1000 when used with the Yaesu headphones is
certainly adequate in most situations but 100 mW, even when used with
the most efficient headphones, can be very marginal in at least two
situations.  1) When operating in a multi-op situation on phone with
lots of noise from the other ops, you may need more audio.  (Heil's
old style headphones were completely unuseable in this situation and
the new design is partially in response to this problem.)  2) As the 
graying of the ham population continues and the natural ageing process 
produces hearing loss there may come a time when the audio is inadequate.
 
The cost to replicate the existing FT-1000 speaker amplifier for the second 
radio would not have been excessive, but Yaesu chose to define a new 
standard for audio levels and the price we all pay is that we have to put
up with this debate on internet.  My mission was and is to understand 
why some people have been happy with the radio and their headsets and
some people have been unhappy.  I think I understand the issues now and
I want to characterize different headphones and their relative
efficiencies so the consumer can make an informed decision and the
manufacturers (Yaesu and Heil) can decide if they should do anything, such
as labels, engineering changes, or nothing.
 
And, yes, this is the final transmission until I have some engineering
numbers to report on headphone efficiencies that may also have some interest
to other than Yaesu owners.
 
73  John  W0UN    broz at csn.org

>From mraz at maverick.aud.alcatel.com (Kris I. Mraz)  Thu May 19 17:35:38 1994
From: mraz at maverick.aud.alcatel.com (Kris I. Mraz) (Kris I. Mraz)
Date: Thu, 19 May 94 11:35:38 CDT
Subject: CQP '93
Message-ID: <9405191635.AA18605 at maverick.aud.alcatel.com>

I was surprised to receive in the mail yesterday a wine "glass" for my
participation in the 1993 CQP. Its a nice piece of work and
appreciated. Thank you, NCCC.  I am assuming every participant
received this. Am I right?

Kris AA5UO