Don Wilhelm wrote:
DOUGLAS ZWIEBEL wrote:
Methinks there is more afoot than meets the eye.
The announcement did *not* say that they did not meet standards, nor
did they say that the standards were too high - they did say that they
did not expect to meet the standards in production units at a cost
they considered reasonable (whether those are EU compliance standards
or internal company quality standards, it makes no difference). Quote:
"However, guaranteeing this high standard without limitations in a
series production program with many vendors runs into difficulties
which cannot be overcome at a cost level which is still acceptable."
The engineers produced a product that was not reproducible within
budget.
Don's final sentence puts his finger right on the problem.
In a product of such high quality, it would be surprising if there was
any difficulty in meeting EU compliance standards. However, if
production difficulties required repeated design changes, the costs of
mandatory re-testing would have to be recovered from the final selling
price.
It's a great pity that the PT-8000 could not be brought into full
production, because the world always needs new and different ideas. No
doubt the ideas from the PT-8000 - along with the hard commercial
lessons - will be re-absorbed into Hilberling's highly successful
commercial and military products, but it would have been so much better
if those ideas had been out on the market to inspire and challenge other
designers.
Above all, I feel so sorry for Hans Hilberling, DK7LG, because this
project was his own personal "baby" to put some of his company's
commercial success back into amateur radio. (See
http://www.hilberling.de/ and click on "Ham Radio".)
It's a story that must give Wayne and Eric a shiver down the spine.
--
73 from Ian GM3SEK
http://www.ifwtech.co.uk/g3sek
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