[John Smith[_6_]]

On 12/14/2011 10:37 PM, wrote:
"Modular radio" is indeed possible. Almost all GOOD RF test equipment
and professional grade receivers (Watkins Johnson, Racal etc) are
modular in that each section is a tray or block with a 50 ohm
connectorized input and output. But each module costs more than any
consumer radio.

The 10.7 IF module for the IFR 1200 series is basically a fixed
frequency single conversion superhet that has a parts cost of about
thirty dollars, fifteen of which are the connectors and the metal tray
and pan. Last I heard if you were so unfortunate as to need to buy one
it was well in four figures. It is simpler than any AM/FM pocket
'transistor radio' you can get at Radio SHack and contains no ASICs,
no microprocessor, and no custom coils or hybrids. All the miniature
IF cans are Coilcraft catalog parts.

By contrast the total profit in the notebook PC I am typing this on
is probably less than a hundred dollars and that includes that made by
the silicon makers for the chips which constitute nine figure
development budgets. The IF module has a board that could be laid out
in twenty minutes by any competent OrCad operator from a netlist. 10.7
MHz and 455 kHz are trivial to lay out for. The single layer board
probably costs three dollars apiece. he bare board fab in thei
notebook's motherboard is probably considerably more and probably has
eight to twelve layers.

The difference? Several Volume is one. Competition is another.

Very few people are even INTERESTED in radio outside the broadcast
receiver in their car and the various wireless digital gizmos they
own. The market is tiny. And that there is tends to be governments
and such, so the businesses that cater to it are spoiled rotten.

Any mid to high range video card --NVIDIA/ATI/etc. are much more
powerful and would be much more expensive, if they were totally
proprietary and required all other components in their system to be
proprietary and manufactured/sold/marketed by the same corp/company.

As already stated, manufacturers will fight to maintain the systems as
they are, and they will damn well use any scare tactic or manufactured
"monster" to cause the status quo to remain untouched and undisturbed.
However, the SW hobby will continue to decline, the media available on
those declining platforms will continue to decline and be limited, etc.

Like I say, this will all have to fall, apparently, to a greater low
than our eyes are reporting at the present time, before someone will
finally stand against the downstream and cause improvements in design
and hardware and software ...

What is happening is obvious, it seems like the only debate is what is
responsible and causing it ... however, no matter what debate and
arguments are posed, it is quite obvious all the WRONG things are being
done at this present time ... but, all the hardware manufactures seem
insane, as they keep churning out the same old, same old antiquated crap
but expecting a different trend ... all we are seeing are the results of
those endeavors ...

TV has gotten a partial reprieve, and probably will be rather short
lived. The big screen TVs, plasma, then LED has kept the focus off the
important question of, "I already have a computer, why don't I just drop
in a card, or hook up an external USB dongle, and use my computer as my
TV -- the big screen HD monitor can then serve as my computer monitor
also?" If you visit a software engineers home, or hardware engineers
home, you are likely to see such systems in use -- it is only for the
general public to realize the benefits before they start doing the same ...

But, those ahead of the curve can, and are, already enjoying this ...
perhaps the rest are simply unwilling or unable ... but I'd suggest the
TV you buy have digital, HD, S-Video, etc. hookups ...

Regards,
JS