Sender: <marv@lancaironline.net> (Marvin Kaye)
To: lml
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 19:36:38 -0500
Message-ID: <redirect-1885400@logan.com>
From: RWolf99@aol.com
Subject: Ancient Radios
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Hamid Wasti wrote "The plane had state of the art Terra radios, not ancient 
Kings designed in the early 80's."

Hamid - Don't know if you were being facetious or not.  I suspect yes.  (I 
guess I'm just mentally slow today.)  Why am I concerned?  I found a smokin' 
deal on a brand new KX-155 recently so I bought it.  Yes, a new copy of that 
ancient radio, but it was a lot cheaper than the new copy of that prehistoric 
Lycoming engine I bought!  The KX-155's seem pretty bulletproof to me, so my 
only concern before plunking down my money was when the FAA would require 
8.33 KHz spacing.  But I work with a guy who goes to the FAA/Industry 
meetings on those topics and he assured me that I didn't have to worry for a 
long, long time.  Anyway, no worries or criticism intended here so please 
don't take it that way...

An interesting side note.  He said that an airline representative presented a 
very detailed cost-benefit analysis of radio upgrades.  He was then followed 
by the AOPA rep, who thanked him for the detailed analysis but then said "Of 
course you realize that when WE do a cost-benefit analysis, it's 'Honey, can 
I buy a new radio?'"

I'm reminded of our early flying days -- maybe in the 1970's -- when radio 
failures were a real concern.  But have any of you had a radio failure in the 
last decade???  I mean, if it was working when you took off but stopped 
working in the air.  I certainly haven't.

- Rob Wolf
LNC2 50% IO-360