On Apr 29, 3:01�pm, K�HB wrote:
Hans,

What's your take on the "MIL-STD 810" compliance of some Yaesu gear?

Good marketing. �MIL-STD 810 related to shock, vibration, salt sp
ray, etc.
It is unrelated to any "performance" criteria.

The HT's involved probably have their design roots in a military contract
which required that level of durability, so crediting the testing into th
eir
COTS product offering is good marketing practice.

Good answer, Hans. Having worked 3 years in environmental testing at
Hughes Aircraft (El Segundo Division) in 1956 to 1958, I've got a fair
amount of experience in that. Essentially, consumer grade
electronics(and some industrial grade) will simply fall apart when
subjected to thefull brunt of MIL-STD-810.

With newer electronics becoming more compact there is less mass to be
affected by shock and vibration, will survive better than big clunkyold
electronics. Designers don't go full bore on temperature testing of
circuits for lower-grade environment products so those can fail there.
Salt spraywon't affect plastic cases much but there are seldom any good
seals betweencase and controls in amateur radio equipment. Just some
general examples.

I'm not saying that "all" amateur equipment will fail, only most of it
if stuck with the full brunt of MIL-STD-810 testing.

Handheld transceivers see most sales to professional users so it
isnormal to do a releatively-simple (nowadays) frequency modification
to run themon amateur frequencies. Few HTs sold to pro users get
full-on 810 testing (810 has more variations now than a half century
ago) so the marketing come-on phrasing of "compliance" isn't always
accurate to indicate "toughness."

So few here have had any experience in testing equipment under military
environmental conditions that they can't talk about it with accuracy.
I've seen some pros with experience survive such testing rather
crestfallen with "I should have anticipated that condition" after they
fished out the components that had vibrated loose at low-frequency
shaking.

Was I a victim of that same "should have anticipated" grouping?
Yes.Back in the days of slide-rules, no calculators, I slipped a
decimal point for a zener temperature compensation circuit for a
voltage reference. Found it during a temperature cycling test. Went
back into the log book, found the error, fixed it with an Engineering
Change Request and in hardware and published it in one night's extra
work (not paid for) at RCA. A few weeks later my HP-35 arrived and I
double-checked my correction. :-)

73, Len K6LHA