[OT] Hilberling PT-8000 canceled - let me get this straight

[DOUGLAS ZWIEBEL]

So EU has all these rigid standards...are those only applicable for
products manufactured in the EU?  How can all these other ham radio
manufacturers meet the specs but a "well respected" German
manufacturer, already in the business, can not?

Methinks there is more afoot than meets the eye.

Doug KR2Q
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[Don Wilhelm-4]

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.  Such is the fate of many 'sandbox' projects within a large
company, budget is always an important parameter in any engineering
task.  During my working years, I have seen many projects canned because
they could not come in on budget (I worked on one of those too) - no
sense for the company to lose money on every piece of equipment they
sell, that does not keep the stockholders happy.

73,
Don W3FPR

DOUGLAS ZWIEBEL wrote:
> Methinks there is more afoot than meets the eye.
>
>
>  
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[Brett Howard]

There are times that a design engineer has to slightly degrade the
performance of a product in order to meet these requirements.
Especially since in order to meet the requirements over manufacturing
you actually have to beat them with good margin.  Engineering is ALWAYS
a tradeoff.

On Fri, 2008-07-25 at 21:03 -0400, DOUGLAS ZWIEBEL wrote:

> So EU has all these rigid standards...are those only applicable for
> products manufactured in the EU?  How can all these other ham radio
> manufacturers meet the specs but a "well respected" German
> manufacturer, already in the business, can not?
>
> Methinks there is more afoot than meets the eye.
>
> Doug KR2Q
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[gm3sek]

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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