[TenTec] Waiting for Transceiver Nirvana

[Duane Grotophorst]

--- John Rippey <w3uls at 3n.net> wrote:
 
> 2.  If Moore's law still prevails, then any chip
> chosen for a 
> software-driven radio will be replaced in 18 months
> by one that is half as 
> costly and that has twice the computing power. Ergo,
> much more so than with 
> the analog rigs we know and love, rapid obsolescence
> of the latest and 
> greatest software-driven rig is a given.

Moore law only really applies to computing power, or
more specifically microprocessor component density.
Our radios (even the software driven ones) are still
far more "radio" than "computer" so Moore's law only
minimally impacts our radios price/performance ratios.
Ham radio prices today more closely tracks the general
consumer electronics pricing trends rather than
computers. Not until most of our radios functionality
are shifted into a mostly generic computer platform
will we really begin to see the benefits of Moore's
law. The good news is that all of the enabling
technology to do this is here now, - somebody just
needs to take that ball and really run with it from a
commercialization perspective. It will also require
some fundamental rethinking about how our radios
should be designed and how we as humans can best
interact with them. It may be heresy to some, but
knobs and buttons are not always the best way to drive
and work with our radios. 
 
> 3.  Because the ham market is downscale with regard
> to pricing, we do not 
> see the performance in ham market software-driven
> transceivers that is 
> available up-market. Compromises in ham gear
> necessarily are made: in 
> selection of chips, and in their engineering, to
> meet the ham market price 
> point (ICOM obviously will be testing the upper
> limits of the ham market 
> with its IC-7800). There are all kinds of
> compromises in the ICOM PROs, and 
> so also in the ORION, hence the discussions on this
> and other reflectors.
 
Unfortunately all of these radios all started with a
mostly frozen set of design points. Most radio
designers today still think in terms of building
radios that work in a small set of predefined ways.
They need to shift towards a more open ended design
definition and accept the notion that they cannot
cover all of the end users needs out of the box or
with a single product definition. However being radios
first there are few fixed parameters that every user
will want/need, things like solid, uncompromising RF
performance. Everything else can be pretty much driven
by software definition. 

> 4. Therefore, while we may like to think we are
> seeing in the latest rigs 
> the absolute latest and greatest--we aren't, and we
> won't. After all, we're 
> radio amateurs.

If the advances ever stop I'm outa here, - why would I
want to cling to some static point in time technology
wise, or for anything else far as that goes? So much
of the worlds problems today can be directly traced to
folks trying to freeze time in one way or another.

> 5.  The bad news is that as advances in this genre
> gradually trickle down 
> to hams, the resulting rigs will be expensive (by
> ham standards), their 
> performance will be markedly better than their
> predecessors, and we'll 
> repeatedly have to dig into our pocketbooks to pay
> for that performance if 
> we just cannot live without the next new thing.

No matter how you slice it all ham radio gear today is
less expensive in inflation adjusted real terms than
they have ever been at any time in history of ham
radio, - for any level of performance.

Duane
N9DG

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