Other collecting activities?

From: William Donzelli <aw288_at_osfn.org>
Date: Sun Apr 18 15:25:36 2004

> I've admired the quality of a lot of the older General Radio
> equipment. I have a General Radio 1650 LCR Bridge, and a few other
> pieces of their equipment. They produced gear where they made no
> compromises in quality. You open up the chassis on old G-R gear and
> you see the physics all laid out the way a scientist would do it.
> Not like the 'quality engineered out by the MBA cost-cutters' junk
> produced at instrument vendors today.

This is why General Radio is really no longer with us. Even towards the
end, they still produced high quality gear, but did not sell much because
they couldn't see to ever cutting corners. When they retreated to the
niche of VLSI test equipment, they still made great gear, but most other
vendors did as well.

It is a real shame, but General Radio was just a little too conservative.

> All the new 'digital' stuff will
> have dead batteries and be worthless, unless some 'credentialed'
> laboratory pushes a few buttons and puts another $150 sticker on it
> saying it's 'good' for another two years.

Don't mock too much - calibration is a pretty serious business, and is
much more than just pushing a couple of buttons. There is actually a big
infrastructure in many of the shops. While it seems like an industry based
on the "rip off", it is not.

William Donzelli
aw288_at_osfn.org
Received on Sun Apr 18 2004 - 15:25:36 BST