[BC] Stooopid Engineering Wins

[Phil Alexander]

On 18 Jan 2006 at 19:20, Kent Winrich, K9EZ wrote:

 > Phil Alexander wrote:
 >
 > > Snipped.....
 > >
 > >
 > >The history of engineering is filled with examples of inferior ideas
 > >becoming *the* industry standard because they had "the money" behind
 > >them. This is true for automobiles, electronics, and almost any sector
 > >of engineering for manufactured products you can name. Money, not the
 > >best technology decides the issue. That is the hard reality. To
 > >believe otherwise *is* unenlightened.
 > >
 > >
 > >
 >
 > Witness the VHS vs Beta battle.  Beta was better but VHS won out.

Yes, and most AM's have series fed towers too. <g>

Run feed point Z curves on a slant wire sometime and you'll see
what I mean. Talk about nearly infinite b/w ... try a slant wire.

But the biggest one of all time is probably automatic transmissions
in cars. The hydrostatic design is used on much heavy equipment
because it is more versatile, easier to control and infinitely
variable. As I understand it, the reason was by the time Detroit
saw presentations they had plans for building hydrodynamic
transmission plants for use in the early '50's cars. Re-engineering
the cars that were slated to get A/T and the plants to make them
was considered to great an expense, and since then, they have done
transmissions the same as always. Thus we have P-R-N-D-L rather than
infinitely variable trannys that would run the engine at an optimum
speed, increasing mileage and cutting emissions.


Phil Alexander