[TenTec] Re: Rig standardization

[Steve Muldoon]

Hi Stuart -

Your comments are on the mark.  What you are suggesting is exactly the 
direction automobile manufacturers have been moving for electrical 
connectors.  Much of this activity is being led by the USCAR 
organization in the US.  OEMs are beginning to understand the overall 
benefit (economic and engineering system design) of electrical 
connector standardization across the OEMs in certain areas or for 
particular applications.

However, I think that the accessory market is probably one area that is 
lucrative in amateur radio, so part and connection scheme proliferation 
plays into that business model.

(To keep this focused on Ten Tec) - I think their approach of keeping 
most of the I/O simple and accessible with commonly available (and 
available from multiple sources) types of connectors makes sense.  If 
we could only get the "other" guys to do it like Ten Tec (hihi).

Just my 2 cents.

Steve - N8KOM



On Thursday, September 9, 2004, at 07:04  PM, Stuart Rohre wrote:

> Why did it all get off the track?   Many years ago, any phone rig had 
> a two
> conductor mike connector that had a screw on shell, and coaxial 
> contact.  In
> those days TR was a switch on the transmitter, and receiver to go from 
> Talk
> to listen.  There was 1/4 inch phone jack for the key and Headphones 
> had a
> jack too.
>
> On mobile equipment, you had a tip, ring sleeve mike jack, so that you 
> could
> have push to talk activation of a TR relay.  That became popular with 
> early
> transceivers as well.
>
> Why did Yaecomwood bring in the multipin connectors that were not 
> common to
> North America?
> Of course, partly it was driven by use of Touch Tone mikes on FM rigs, 
> but
> then they added them to HF rigs, and standardization went out the 
> window.
> Perhaps there is good reason to keep the PTT keying leads a separate 
> pair
> from audio ground and thus the 4 pin Ten Tec mike plug makes sense.
>
> But, you can also see that rigs used to have standard 1/4 inch phone 
> jacks
> for headphones and now there are many variations, as rigs have gotten
> smaller.   Also, you now see the RJ 45 type mike connectors as well as 
> the 8
> pin round on import rigs. Where will it stop?   Can hams as a group, 
> or as
> clubs and national societies, establish standards committees and get 
> all
> manufacturers to use common connectors for mike, key, phones, external
> speakers, TNC's, Computer control, etc.?
>
> One sad fact is that the computer industry fell down in standards 
> setting on
> connectors and I/O conventions.   After many years of the serial port 
> and
> standard RS 232 that could be implemented as full handshake or as a 
> simple
> Transmit, receive, and ground, with loop backs on controls, now we see 
> the
> I/O flavor of the year.   We lose the serial, simple interfaces, and 
> the do
> everything parallel interfaces; and you never know which standard will 
> catch
> the fancy of computer designers next month.  Is it any wonder some of 
> us
> prefer a radio to be a manually controlled radio only, or have all 
> modes
> built in rather than worrying the configurations of I/O and external
> controllers?
>
> The cost of building radios and buying them would come down, for the
> features contained, if each maker did not have to buy small quantities 
> of
> connectors rather than buying a mass produced standard connector.  
> About the
> only standard connector still seen is the UHF antenna connection, and 
> that
> is beginning to vary with BNC and N appearing on some equipment.  Of 
> course,
> there are good reasons for BNC and N, and maybe those two should win 
> out for
> all uses.
>
> At one time there was a industry group of amateur radio manufacturers,
> spearheaded by the editors of radio magazines.  After incentive 
> licensing,
> such groups fell by the wayside with the decline of old line 
> manufacturers
> like Hallicrafters, Hammerlund, etc.
>
> I think it is about time to raise a cry to standardize power and input/
> output connections and improve the lot of the poor ham trying to tie 
> several
> incompatible, (connector wise) rigs to accessories and other station
> equipment.
> 73,
> Stuart
> K5KVH
>
>
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