Grundig Satellit 300 whinge

[Sylvia Else]

The Satellit 300 was a digital PLL synthesis radio receiver from the
80s, and I bought it new, so I must have had it for getting on for
thirty years.

http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/grundig_satellit_300.html

I suppose I can't complain that much given that it still worked until I
dropped a wooden curtain rail onto it. The outside was unmarked, but it
would no longer pick up MW (though VHF was OK, don't know about the
other bands), the tuning wheel didn't work, and the illumination for the
LCD panel was absent.

The first problem suggested an issue with the ferrite rod antenna (not
used for VHF of course), and a minute or so after I'd opened the thing
up I spotted a broken connection. The second problem was also a wire
that had broken off the tuning wheel mechanism. The third was a broken
filament bulb.

The first two faults would probably not have occurred if the wiring had
any slack in it at all.

Also, this was an expensive radio - hadn't they heard of headers?

http://members.optusnet.com.au/sylviae/satellit3.jpg
http://members.optusnet.com.au/sylviae/satellit4.jpg

Several more things broke while I was trying to put it back together,
though it's all working now - I think.

Sylvia.

 

[Joerg]

Gosh, what a hairball. Hadn't these people heard of ribbon cables?
Hadn't they heard of electronic packaging in general?

The old Grundig Satellites from the late 60's and 70's were much worse.
OTOH, as a kid I got to repair some and that provided a very nice boost
for the hobby budget. Those things broke all the time, especially the
really big ones that almost had the size of a briefcase. They were ok if
you left them in one spot and just turned the dial. But woe to him who
thought the handle meant they could be transported frequently.

The way it usually went was the owner didn't trust a kid like me with
that because these radios had cost them a fortune when new. So they gave
them to a radio & TV repair shop. Those guys eventually threw their
hands up in the air, gave up. With that, the radio had reached basket
case status and I got it. It was nice to see the jaws drop when they
worked again.

Some defects were outright mean. Such as super-thin enameled wires that
corroded off inside the IF filter cans. It seems they must have used
some aggressive flux and under there it didn't get cleaned out too well.
So when I got one of those surrendered cases the first order of biz was
to ohm out all those windings.

Packaging is half the job in this business. As my old mentor Melvin
Goldstein used to say, when you've got the schematic, you're 10% done.

He is right.

 

[Sylvia Else]

Gosh, what a hairball. Hadn't these people heard of ribbon cables?
Hadn't they heard of electronic packaging in general?

What struck me as well is that the thing must have been a nightmare to
manufacture. Presumably all those connections were soldered by hand, and
somehow they have to address the problem I had - how to close the case
without breaking one of them.

I wonder what proportion of the completed units had to be rejected
because they didn't work properly.

Sylvia.

 

[P E Schoen]

"Sylvia Else" wrote in message

What struck me as well is that the thing must have been a nightmare
to manufacture. Presumably all those connections were soldered by
hand, and somehow they have to address the problem I had - how
to close the case without breaking one of them.

I wonder what proportion of the completed units had to be rejected because
they didn't work properly.

It looks like they spent most of their effort making it look good on the
outside. I have some old German meters my father got from a Messerschmitt
factory in Germany during WW2, and the wiring was very neat. But of course
it was simpler than a SW radio. Still, I would expect much better attention
to detail in a German product.

I recently bought a DSP shortwave radio on eBay for $15 plus $10 shipping.
It was made in China and all the labels and instructions were in Chinese. By
the time I contacted them and got a translation, I had figured out most of
it. I have not used it much, but it seems pretty nice:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/190452362072?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Paul

 

[John S]

The Satellit 300 was a digital PLL synthesis radio receiver from the
80s, and I bought it new, so I must have had it for getting on for
thirty years.

http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/grundig_satellit_300.html

I suppose I can't complain that much given that it still worked until I
dropped a wooden curtain rail onto it. The outside was unmarked, but it
would no longer pick up MW (though VHF was OK, don't know about the
other bands), the tuning wheel didn't work, and the illumination for the
LCD panel was absent.

The first problem suggested an issue with the ferrite rod antenna (not
used for VHF of course), and a minute or so after I'd opened the thing
up I spotted a broken connection. The second problem was also a wire
that had broken off the tuning wheel mechanism. The third was a broken
filament bulb.

The first two faults would probably not have occurred if the wiring had
any slack in it at all.

Also, this was an expensive radio - hadn't they heard of headers?

http://members.optusnet.com.au/sylviae/satellit3.jpg
http://members.optusnet.com.au/sylviae/satellit4.jpg

Several more things broke while I was trying to put it back together,
though it's all working now - I think.

Sylvia.

Hey, Guys -

She said it's about 30 years old. What were you doing back then?
Searching for connectors or getting the product out?

 

[Joerg]

On Mon, 5 Dec 2011 10:45:28 -0800 (PST), Bill Sloman

[...]

Not in my world.

We already knew that you didn't live in the real world. ...

My world is the same as John's is. Maybe you live in a different one?

... Presumably
these things happen behind your back - what the boss doesn't know
doesn't upset him ...

Da boss usually sits in design reviews so da boss gets to know if this
should happen

 

[Joerg]

On Dec 5, 8:11 pm, John Larkin
]

In real life the packaging has a way of getting parts
of the schematic redrawn.
Not in my world.
We already knew that you didn't live in the real world. ...

My world is the same as John's is. Maybe you live in a different one?

... Presumably
these things happen behind your back - what the boss doesn't know
doesn't upset him ...

Da boss usually sits in design reviews so da boss gets to know if this
should happen

Joerg, Joerg, Joerg! All you contribute here is feeding trolls.
Bye... again.

Jim, Jim, Jim! When do you learn about modern newsreaders that allow to
selectively pick what one wants to have displayed ...

Tsk .. tsk .. tsk

 

[John S]

Bill Sloman wrote:
On Dec 5, 8:11 pm, John Larkin
On Mon, 5 Dec 2011 10:45:28 -0800 (PST), Bill Sloman

[...]

In real life the packaging has a way of getting parts
of the schematic redrawn.
Not in my world.
We already knew that you didn't live in the real world. ...

My world is the same as John's is. Maybe you live in a different one?


... Presumably
these things happen behind your back - what the boss doesn't know
doesn't upset him ...

Da boss usually sits in design reviews so da boss gets to know if this
should happen

Joerg, Joerg, Joerg! All you contribute here is feeding trolls.
Bye... again.

Jim, Jim, Jim! When do you learn about modern newsreaders that allow to
selectively pick what one wants to have displayed ...

Tsk .. tsk .. tsk

Please, Joerg, don't bait the old prejudicial fart.

 

[[email protected]]

I draw schematics, fill out the form to create new library parts,
define the outline/mounting/connectors/heatsinks/LEDs, do the stackups
and trace impedance rules, plan and often do the parts placement,
oversee layout, and check/tweak the PCB before it's Gerbered. I often
lay out critical high-speed or low-level sections myself. Once in a
while I do an entire board, just to keep in practice.

We Gerbered this today:

ftp://jjlarkin.lmi.net/ESM_pcb.gif

The thing in the middle is an LTC2242 250 MHz, 12-bit ADC.

The only new thing, of late, is that I don't assign FPGA or uP BGA
pins on the initial schematic. That would almost always make routing
impossible. We have a net name convention like

NAME_F FPGA i/o

NAME_P_FL lvds pair +
NAME_N_FL lvds pair -

NAME_FD FPGA dedicated function

NAME_FC FPGA clock

NAME_U ARM uP i/o

I generally use a convention sorta like:

SECTION_NAME_TYPE
where: SECTION = controlling subsection
NAME = signal function
TYPE = I2C (SDA, SCL), SPI (SCLK, MOSI, etc.), TxD, Clock, etc

/ (prefix) = negative active. Gets converted to "_n" suffix in the VHDL
wrapper (negative active signals are fairly rare in the logic).

+ (suffix) = positive differential
- (suffix) = negative differential
+V.V = positive voltages
-V.V = negative voltages

I don't much care if it's an FPGA or UC I/O. I care about its function and
which section of the logic owns it.

and so on. Sometimes we specify a bank, too. That lets The Brat pick
the pins for best routing. We rip the final netlist and feed that into
the Quartus thing, which tells us if her pin assignments are OK. In
some cases, nothing but the Altera software can decide for sure if
it's OK.

Do you make a good cut at the FPGA design before layout or just define the
pins and their functions?

 

[[email protected]]

We usually finish the board layout before we finish the FPGA design;
often we don't start the FPGA until after the board is gerbered. I do
a pin count and a sketch-level suggestion of parts
placement/routing/bank usage, and Liz makes it actually happen. A lot
of negotiation follows. I have a lot of sympathy for people who have
to use outside layout services, or throw it over the wall to another
department. I can see how they could wind up with two or three board
spins before it works.

I've done it both ways. It helps to have your own layout people but without
that luxury it just means working out of a hotel room while you sit over the
layouter's shoulder. ;-) Without direct interaction between the designer and
layout person, agreed, anything more than a trivial design is hopeless. I've
seen the results. :-(

The rules for pin usage on the Altera chips aren't all in writing, so
that's why we load the pinout into the Quartus software before we
gerber the board. We had one case recently where a cmos logic level
ball was next to an LVDS pair, and Quartus told us there would be too
much crosstalk. Fixing the layout would be almost impossible, so we
declared the signal rate on the cmos pin to be 0 Hz. That's the cheat
for that particular problem. We've also discovered some power supply
issues on certain banks for certain kinds of signals, again from the
software and not from the manuals.

Got that part. Some don't cut the Gerber until the FPGA is first simulated
and fit. I've never done it that way, though.

 

[legg]

On Mon, 5 Dec 2011 19:28:46 -0800 (PST), Bill Sloman


I draw schematics, fill out the form to create new library parts,
define the outline/mounting/connectors/heatsinks/LEDs, do the stackups
and trace impedance rules, plan and often do the parts placement,
oversee layout, and check/tweak the PCB before it's Gerbered. I often
lay out critical high-speed or low-level sections myself. Once in a
while I do an entire board, just to keep in practice.

This product's printed wiring was manually-cut tape on a transparency.

The schematic art was drawn by hand on (possibly pre-formatted) paper
or vellum, using a T-square, pen, ink and possibly some art transfer
materials.

The point to point connections, and schematic correspondence were
checked visually, by humans, sometimes with the aid of a photocopier
and coloured pencils/pens/crayons.

The bill of material was, at the very most, typed on paper, before
being (eventually, if ever), manually entered into some kind of
database.

RL

 

[legg]

On Mon, 05 Dec 2011 07:24:14 -0800, John Larkin

Gosh, what a hairball. Hadn't these people heard of ribbon cables?
Hadn't they heard of electronic packaging in general?

Packaging is half the job in this business. As my old mentor Melvin
Goldstein used to say, when you've got the schematic, you're 10% done.

John

Consumer-grade connectors in the 80's had their own issues, never mind
the cost. Looks like the display used a printed edge connector - that
would have been considered quite progressive for the time.

I've an Emerso/Sangean/Olympia ATSxxxx clone from the ~ same era.
First thing to go was normally the 'digital pot' tuning dial stuck out
the side. It has electromechanical wipers that can misalign on
impact.....

I've resoldered an internal solid-conductor shielded cable termination
three times (first time after buying it as 'dead' scrap). You don't
see any solid conductors inside the Satellite. Count your blessings.

Mine's still in daily use, in spite of having a melted front face,
aquired when positioned on a test shelf, in too close proximity (12
inches) to a multi-KW passive load, sometime in the early 90s. It was
a first order EMC policeman, and a useful indicator of the functioning
status in the nearby switch-mode DUTs.

RL

 

[legg]

On Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:12:05 +1100, Sylvia Else

test (after failure to show)

my apologies if this passes.
still hunting server issues.

RL

 

[Sylvia Else]

We use the Optimum Procrastination Management methodology.

Is that similar to "the earliest date you can't prove it won't be
finished by" estimation method?

Sylvia

 

[[email protected]]

We use the Optimum Procrastination Management methodology.

"No work is done before its time."

 

[Sylvia Else]

"No work is done before its time."

Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow, because in the
meantime it may become unnecessary.

Sylvia.

 

[John Devereux]

Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow, because in the
meantime it may become unnecessary.

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well.

The converse is also true.

 

[[email protected]]

Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow, because in the
meantime it may become unnecessary.

I once asked my boss why we were putting up with the time wasters higher
management was telling us to do, rather than getting the real work done. His
answer was that it was better to be fired in six months for not getting the
job done than today for not doing what the big boss wanted. In six months
there is a good chance someone else will be in even more (schedule) trouble.

 

[Fred Abse]

I once asked my boss why we were putting up with the time wasters higher
management was telling us to do, rather than getting the real work done. His
answer was that it was better to be fired in six months for not getting the
job done than today for not doing what the big boss wanted. In six months
there is a good chance someone else will be in even more (schedule) trouble.

The secret of success in management is to be into the next job, preferably
with another company, before your mistakes get attributed to you ;-)

 

[[email protected]]

Whenever a boss told me to do something I didn't want to do, I said
"no" or just didn't do it. So far, it's only got me fired once, and
that turned out for the best.

It wasn't that what they were asking was wrong, just a waste of time. As we
got later, the waste got bigger. Fortunately, my boss at the time was one of
the best I've worked for. He felt his position in life was to hire good
people and then run interference for them. ;-)