Pete KE9OA wrote:

Hi Michael,
I was in the Synthesizer Group, so I didn't have my hand
in those projects that you mentioned.
Pretty cool, on those microwave parts that you have on hand.
I used to find those kinds of cool things when I visited the Rockwell
Inventory Disposal store. I need to get out there again...............

Pete

I started repairing the Collins/Rockwell receivers in self defense.
They decided that we had to rent a loaner from them, or they wouldn't
repair our equipment. They charged $150/month rent, and took over six
months to fix a receiver. The typical bill was over $1200. I had the
manual, so I popped one open and found the first LO was fried. Rockwell
told me the microwave transistor was 1500, minimum ordered of 18 parts
because it was out of stock. The transistor was a die mounted to a gold
stud, and covered with a drop of epoxy, and no part number. New
Microdyne LPR receivers were right at $1000, and worked a lot better so
I told them to forget it, that we were going to repair what we could,
and replace them with the LPR units, when we had to. I fixed most of
them in under one hour bench time, and less than $20 in parts. The
biggest problem with them was they ran way too hot, and over a five year
period, the circuit boards developed a large black spot in the center of
the board as they cooked themselves to death. Still, it was my first
work with solid state microwave equipment.

I found a VCO board for a Microdyne synthesizer in my junk the other
day. They had used the design for years, and it was becoming harder for
the techs to get them to meet the specs. I was asked to work on them for
while and found a number of problems with the design, and parts that
were selected to replace obsolete parts. I learned a lot of tricks to
clean up a PLL circuit fixing a mountain of rejected modules. It was
harder work convincing both design and manufacturing engineering to
correct the problems, than it was to find the problems.



--
We now return you to our normally scheduled programming.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

I know how that can be...................parts for older units are hard to
get ahold of. I remember years ago, I called Rockwell for a quote on the
main tuning knob for a 651S-1. The price for tooling, etc was 5000 dollars!
That receiver is no longer supported, and the only way to get ahold of parts
for that unit is from the surplus market.
Same thing goes for the KWM380/HF380.

Pete

Michael A. Terrell wrote in message
...
Pete KE9OA wrote:

Hi Michael,
I was in the Synthesizer Group, so I didn't have my hand
in those projects that you mentioned.
Pretty cool, on those microwave parts that you have on hand.
I used to find those kinds of cool things when I visited the Rockwell
Inventory Disposal store. I need to get out there again...............

Pete

I started repairing the Collins/Rockwell receivers in self defense.
They decided that we had to rent a loaner from them, or they wouldn't
repair our equipment. They charged $150/month rent, and took over six
months to fix a receiver. The typical bill was over $1200. I had the
manual, so I popped one open and found the first LO was fried. Rockwell
told me the microwave transistor was 1500, minimum ordered of 18 parts
because it was out of stock. The transistor was a die mounted to a gold
stud, and covered with a drop of epoxy, and no part number. New
Microdyne LPR receivers were right at $1000, and worked a lot better so
I told them to forget it, that we were going to repair what we could,
and replace them with the LPR units, when we had to. I fixed most of
them in under one hour bench time, and less than $20 in parts. The
biggest problem with them was they ran way too hot, and over a five year
period, the circuit boards developed a large black spot in the center of
the board as they cooked themselves to death. Still, it was my first
work with solid state microwave equipment.

I found a VCO board for a Microdyne synthesizer in my junk the other
day. They had used the design for years, and it was becoming harder for
the techs to get them to meet the specs. I was asked to work on them for
while and found a number of problems with the design, and parts that
were selected to replace obsolete parts. I learned a lot of tricks to
clean up a PLL circuit fixing a mountain of rejected modules. It was
harder work convincing both design and manufacturing engineering to
correct the problems, than it was to find the problems.



--
We now return you to our normally scheduled programming.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

I know how that can be...................parts for older units are hard to
get ahold of. I remember years ago, I called Rockwell for a quote on the
main tuning knob for a 651S-1. The price for tooling, etc was 5000 dollars!
That receiver is no longer supported, and the only way to get ahold of parts
for that unit is from the surplus market.
Same thing goes for the KWM380/HF380.

Pete

Michael A. Terrell wrote in message
...
Pete KE9OA wrote:

Hi Michael,
I was in the Synthesizer Group, so I didn't have my hand
in those projects that you mentioned.
Pretty cool, on those microwave parts that you have on hand.
I used to find those kinds of cool things when I visited the Rockwell
Inventory Disposal store. I need to get out there again...............

Pete

I started repairing the Collins/Rockwell receivers in self defense.
They decided that we had to rent a loaner from them, or they wouldn't
repair our equipment. They charged $150/month rent, and took over six
months to fix a receiver. The typical bill was over $1200. I had the
manual, so I popped one open and found the first LO was fried. Rockwell
told me the microwave transistor was 1500, minimum ordered of 18 parts
because it was out of stock. The transistor was a die mounted to a gold
stud, and covered with a drop of epoxy, and no part number. New
Microdyne LPR receivers were right at $1000, and worked a lot better so
I told them to forget it, that we were going to repair what we could,
and replace them with the LPR units, when we had to. I fixed most of
them in under one hour bench time, and less than $20 in parts. The
biggest problem with them was they ran way too hot, and over a five year
period, the circuit boards developed a large black spot in the center of
the board as they cooked themselves to death. Still, it was my first
work with solid state microwave equipment.

I found a VCO board for a Microdyne synthesizer in my junk the other
day. They had used the design for years, and it was becoming harder for
the techs to get them to meet the specs. I was asked to work on them for
while and found a number of problems with the design, and parts that
were selected to replace obsolete parts. I learned a lot of tricks to
clean up a PLL circuit fixing a mountain of rejected modules. It was
harder work convincing both design and manufacturing engineering to
correct the problems, than it was to find the problems.



--
We now return you to our normally scheduled programming.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

I know how that can be...................parts for older units are hard to
get ahold of. I remember years ago, I called Rockwell for a quote on the
main tuning knob for a 651S-1. The price for tooling, etc was 5000
dollars!
That receiver is no longer supported, and the only way to get ahold of
parts
for that unit is from the surplus market.
Same thing goes for the KWM380/HF380.

They can not make any money if they do not sell ney radios. Most companies
make and support items for a short period of time. After that they have the
next modle ready to go. By pricing the repairs at a very high price many
will buy the new stuff. It is difficult to keep up with all the parts of
equipment that is years old.

I forgot the price but in the news paper about 10 years ago it cost the
military about $ 20 K just to get a diode that should have cost a couple of
dollars. The military was out of them and the manufacture had to make a run
of a few thousand . You just can not make one simiconductor.

I know how that can be...................parts for older units are hard to
get ahold of. I remember years ago, I called Rockwell for a quote on the
main tuning knob for a 651S-1. The price for tooling, etc was 5000
dollars!
That receiver is no longer supported, and the only way to get ahold of
parts
for that unit is from the surplus market.
Same thing goes for the KWM380/HF380.

They can not make any money if they do not sell ney radios. Most companies
make and support items for a short period of time. After that they have the
next modle ready to go. By pricing the repairs at a very high price many
will buy the new stuff. It is difficult to keep up with all the parts of
equipment that is years old.

I forgot the price but in the news paper about 10 years ago it cost the
military about $ 20 K just to get a diode that should have cost a couple of
dollars. The military was out of them and the manufacture had to make a run
of a few thousand . You just can not make one simiconductor.

Ralph Mowery wrote:

I know how that can be...................parts for older units are hard to
get ahold of. I remember years ago, I called Rockwell for a quote on the
main tuning knob for a 651S-1. The price for tooling, etc was 5000
dollars!
That receiver is no longer supported, and the only way to get ahold of
parts
for that unit is from the surplus market.
Same thing goes for the KWM380/HF380.

They can not make any money if they do not sell ney radios. Most companies
make and support items for a short period of time. After that they have the
next modle ready to go. By pricing the repairs at a very high price many
will buy the new stuff. It is difficult to keep up with all the parts of
equipment that is years old.


They already had the bare dies, and the mounts. These receivers were
barely four years old and had cost close to $5,000 each we had about 100
of them in service. They had a high failure rate and had used up all
their spares and wanted us to pay more than the price of a new unit per
transistor, so I fixed the units I could, and replaced the others with
new Microdyne equipment. It wasn't very long before no one would buy
their commercial SAT TV equipment because of poor support. By the time
they were out of their hand mounted dies they could have bought a
comparable part already assembled for repairs. I worked in that business
a few years ago, and the company supported most equipment for 15 years.
When they dropped their commercial SAT TV product line, they sold the
remaining parts and all rights to one of their techs, and he still
supports them from his one man shop.


I forgot the price but in the news paper about 10 years ago it cost the
military about $ 20 K just to get a diode that should have cost a couple of
dollars. The military was out of them and the manufacture had to make a run
of a few thousand . You just can not make one semiconductor.

There is a good chance that while they were looking for that part,
another military installation was pitching it into the scrap bin to be
auctioned off for salvage. Today there are companies that specialize in
producing short runs of obsolete semiconductors, and others that buy up
small stocks of every part they find on the spot market to provide EOL
support.

Lansdale is one company that is licensed by Motorola / ON Semi to to
manufacture most of their discontinued products.

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/american...tor/index.html is
a company with a lot of oddball semis for EOL support.
--
We now return you to our normally scheduled programming.

Take a look at this little cutie! ;-)
http://home.earthlink.net/~mike.terrell/photos.html

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Ralph Mowery wrote:

I know how that can be...................parts for older units are hard to
get ahold of. I remember years ago, I called Rockwell for a quote on the
main tuning knob for a 651S-1. The price for tooling, etc was 5000
dollars!
That receiver is no longer supported, and the only way to get ahold of
parts
for that unit is from the surplus market.
Same thing goes for the KWM380/HF380.

They can not make any money if they do not sell ney radios. Most companies
make and support items for a short period of time. After that they have the
next modle ready to go. By pricing the repairs at a very high price many
will buy the new stuff. It is difficult to keep up with all the parts of
equipment that is years old.


They already had the bare dies, and the mounts. These receivers were
barely four years old and had cost close to $5,000 each we had about 100
of them in service. They had a high failure rate and had used up all
their spares and wanted us to pay more than the price of a new unit per
transistor, so I fixed the units I could, and replaced the others with
new Microdyne equipment. It wasn't very long before no one would buy
their commercial SAT TV equipment because of poor support. By the time
they were out of their hand mounted dies they could have bought a
comparable part already assembled for repairs. I worked in that business
a few years ago, and the company supported most equipment for 15 years.
When they dropped their commercial SAT TV product line, they sold the
remaining parts and all rights to one of their techs, and he still
supports them from his one man shop.


I forgot the price but in the news paper about 10 years ago it cost the
military about $ 20 K just to get a diode that should have cost a couple of
dollars. The military was out of them and the manufacture had to make a run
of a few thousand . You just can not make one semiconductor.

There is a good chance that while they were looking for that part,
another military installation was pitching it into the scrap bin to be
auctioned off for salvage. Today there are companies that specialize in
producing short runs of obsolete semiconductors, and others that buy up
small stocks of every part they find on the spot market to provide EOL
support.

Lansdale is one company that is licensed by Motorola / ON Semi to to
manufacture most of their discontinued products.

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/american...tor/index.html is
a company with a lot of oddball semis for EOL support.
--
We now return you to our normally scheduled programming.

Take a look at this little cutie! ;-)
http://home.earthlink.net/~mike.terrell/photos.html

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 08:32:58 -0500, "Ralph Mowery"
wrote:


I forgot the price but in the news paper about 10 years ago it cost the
military about $ 20 K just to get a diode that should have cost a couple of
dollars. The military was out of them and the manufacture had to make a run
of a few thousand . You just can not make one simiconductor.

It is not just a question about MAKING, the army must use MIL-SPEC
devices, and how do they go on making such.... They probably cannot
use an ordinary device for any reason - even in non-critical
applications. Take 2N525 , it is MIL-spec'ed, but most of them are
probably defective today and it has been much better devices to find
for the last 40 years

In British Telecom we had to use CV-numbered semiconductors, although
we could use normal types in the IMTR labs, but it should be
equivalent for a CV-numbered device, the only one I remember now - 25
years later is CV7127. Fortunately not so stupid in Norwegian Telecom

-jm
http://home.online.no/~la8ak/L2.htm
--
Amount of SPAM is so large that MailWasher must delete 99% of the incoming mails
Cannot check every email manually. Please use intelligent title for email.
Mails without titles or using just "hi" is deleted

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 08:32:58 -0500, "Ralph Mowery"
wrote:


I forgot the price but in the news paper about 10 years ago it cost the
military about $ 20 K just to get a diode that should have cost a couple of
dollars. The military was out of them and the manufacture had to make a run
of a few thousand . You just can not make one simiconductor.

It is not just a question about MAKING, the army must use MIL-SPEC
devices, and how do they go on making such.... They probably cannot
use an ordinary device for any reason - even in non-critical
applications. Take 2N525 , it is MIL-spec'ed, but most of them are
probably defective today and it has been much better devices to find
for the last 40 years

In British Telecom we had to use CV-numbered semiconductors, although
we could use normal types in the IMTR labs, but it should be
equivalent for a CV-numbered device, the only one I remember now - 25
years later is CV7127. Fortunately not so stupid in Norwegian Telecom

-jm
http://home.online.no/~la8ak/L2.htm
--
Amount of SPAM is so large that MailWasher must delete 99% of the incoming mails
Cannot check every email manually. Please use intelligent title for email.
Mails without titles or using just "hi" is deleted

In article ,
(J M Noeding) wrote:

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 08:32:58 -0500, "Ralph Mowery"
wrote:


I forgot the price but in the news paper about 10 years ago it cost the
military about $ 20 K just to get a diode that should have cost a couple of
dollars. The military was out of them and the manufacture had to make a run
of a few thousand . You just can not make one simiconductor.

It is not just a question about MAKING, the army must use MIL-SPEC
devices, and how do they go on making such.... They probably cannot
use an ordinary device for any reason - even in non-critical
applications. Take 2N525 , it is MIL-spec'ed, but most of them are
probably defective today and it has been much better devices to find
for the last 40 years


The difference between a mil-spec'd part and a commerical part is mainly
one of documentation. A series of tests are then specified for the
completed parts to make sure they meet their specifications. The care
imposed on the manufacturing process ensures that the parts are built
correctly. It says nothing about the robustness of the design though, it
just ensures that the design parameters are met.

Al

--
There's never enough time to do it right the first time.......