Re: [A-DX] Watkins-Johnson HF-1000 mit Preselector

[Christoph Ratzer <dx@xxxxxxxxx>]

Wer sich schon öfter mal gefragt hat warum sich der TenTec RX340 und der Watkins Johnson HF-1000 so ähnlich sind: Die spannende Antwort wurde vor wenigen Wochen in der amerikanischen "premium-rx" Gruppe erzählt.

73 Christoph

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Hi Gang,

I thought you might be interested in a bit of history I learned yesterday
from a Ten-Tec executive. We were talking about the Ten-Tec RX-340 receiver,
and I observed how similar the panel layout was to the Watkins-Johnson
WJ-8711A and HF-1000 (which I owned for several years). Turns out there's
quite a story behind that similarity.

               In 1991 the NSA, which buys many high-end HF receivers for
surveillance purposes, decided that the cost per receiver was too high. The
NSA put together a study group to try and bring the cost down to the
$7K-$10K range. At that time, the high end HF receiver market was dominated
by Watkins-Johnson, Racal, and Cubic, and Ten-Tec wanted to join the group.

               Ten-Tec and Watkins-Johnson engineers worked together for a
year to define specifications for the NSA's "radio of the future," which
would meet the NSA' target price guidelines. The team finally agreed on a
common set of specifications and was ready to submit it to the government.
In the interim, both T-T and W-J engineers, anticipating sizeable NSA
orders, were working to develop the technology for this new breed of radios.

               At the last moment, which my source called the "23 hour and
59th minute moment" Watkins-Johnson, to Ten-Tec's complete surprise and
dismay, introduced one additional specification: the "radio of the future"
must have a 20,000 hour "mean time between failure" specification- a
ridiculously stringent requirement which is roughly the same required for
space electronics. This was a cagey move on W-J's part, because W-J, having
supplied mil-spec radios for decades could meet the MTBF requirement, but
poor Ten-Tec, with its background in the consumer electronics market, could
not. So, in the end, Ten-Tec dropped out of the competition and W-J got the
NSA orders. Ironically, lacking a competitor, W-J was then able to charge
the NSA nearly twice the NSA's target price for HF-8711A

               But Ten-Tec then decided to fight back. Since they had
already developed the technology during the year of collaboration with W-J,
Ten-Tec quickly came out with RX-330, which has no front panel, but which is
otherwise the "radio of the future" design, without the MTBF specification.
They offered this radio to the government at 1/3 the price of an HF-8711A,
and to their delight the NSA and agencies from other countries snapped  up
this new breed of "black box" receivers in droves. Evidently, users had
become comfortable with computer-controlled receivers, and under procurement
rules, it was permissible for agencies to purchase "COTS"
(Consumer-Off-The-Shelf) radios.

               With the success of the RX-330, Ten-Ten subsequently decided
to bring the RX-340 to market. And so, the similarity in the front panels is
no accident, but a result of a collaboration between the two companys, that
ended with some corporate dirty tricks. The government-military market is
still an important part of T-T's business.

73,

Jim Garland W8ZR


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