Yo! Alexander:
Monday September 09 1996 18:00, Alexander Bilan wrote to Bill Cheek:
 >> On that note, my reservations are on hold.  So far, they have played
 >> straight up with me and I am encouraged.
 AB> Thats encouraging. In either case, even for lack of component support 
from
 AB> the factory, it still the meat and guts of the radio that will sell it 
o
 AB> me in the long run. I may hate certain aspects of the business, but I
 AB> won't let that stop me from enjoying some of the equipment. Just the
 AB> price. =)
I have to kind of like a company or I won't mess with their stuff.  Uniden is 
one I just loathe.  I guess it was 10-15 years ago, they started buying out 
scanner manufacturers along with their patents, designs, and even the repair 
and parts services - lock, stock, & barrel.  Now Uniden owns most of the 
world's scanner patents which effectively stops other companies from 
competing.
AOR and GRE are the only other players in the game.  Yupiteru, which 
proliferates over in Europe, doesn't sell to the US.  Possibly because of 
some obstacle imposed by Uniden.
Not only that, but Uniden won't apply some of those patents to their 
scanners. They're still using mostly old ways in their scanners.  And if that 
ain't enough, when they bought out Electra Bearcat, they outright canceled 
all service and support.  WHen people called up with broken scanners, Uniden 
offered them some kind of a paltry discount on a Uniden scanner; take it or 
leave it, Bubba.  Even though they also bought Electra's service department, 
Uniden just wrapped it up and trashed it.
And then to top it off, Uniden goes for the juglar to extract max dollars 
from the customer and give him the least possible meat 'n taters.  Oh sure, 
you get a real glitzy, slick and wicked looking scanner from Uniden.  Open 
the sucker up, and it's a hollow case with a near bare circuit board and a 
few big ol' chips on it.  In a word, Uniden sells FIRMWARE; not hardware. 
You're in effect, buying a cheapo CPU and the software that it holds.
Don't get me started on AOR............  Arrrgh!
 >> Almost everything is disposable and not repairable at the board level
 >> anymore.
 AB> Seems IBM has taken that philosophy with monitors now. Disposable.
Not just IBM!  One of my Dell monitors crapped out a year or two ago.  I 
called Dell to learn the warranty had expired and the best they could do was 
to offer me a paltry discount on a more modern, over-priced monitor.
 AB> Actually, a rather sad state of affairs
In a word, yes.   :-(
 >> Costs of repair of any electronic board are more than the cost of the
 >> board, after you figure in troubleshooting, tear down and reassemble
 >> time, not to mention parts, and the cost of stocking, ordering, and
 >> inventorying parts.
 AB> Granted.  No one can argue that point at all from the consumer 
electronics
 AB> standpoint.
And THAT is what drives the Uniden manufacturing and marketing machine.  They 
began making "hollow" CB radios back in about 1985-86 which really chapped 
the hides of the CB technical boys.  There was nothing you could do to the 
radios at that point.  How do you hack a chip?
 >> WinRadio appears to me to be as bullet-proof as it gets.  I doubt we
 >> will see many, if any, field failures.  Mis-hacks should be the extent
 >> of it.
 AB> Well, being a tinkerer... Its always nice to know that if you do make a
 AB> slip of the soldering iron, you can get the bits and peices to undo
 AB> your unintended repair. =)
I haven't dug in there yet, but from what I can tell so far, most of the 
components in WinRadio are garden variety, off-the-shell parts.  It ought not 
be necessary to go back to  Rosetta Labs for most anything other than a whole 
new board in worst cases.
Bill Cheek | Internet: bcheek@cts.com | Compu$erve: 74107,1176
Windows 95 Juggernaut Team | Microsoft MVP
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