I spoke to their engineering dept and they stated that the item I found is a new
technology EL product. It is being sold to many different manufacturers
including defense contractors like the one I work for. (Lockeed Martin) We are
using this material in the F-22 fighter Instrument cluster for backlighting and
it is supposed to have a half life of 50,000 hours according to the specs. So
you have to ask yourself " Am I going to be the usual cheap assed ham or am I
going to invest 25-50 dollars to give my Delta II a long and happy life and
assure its resail value?" Everyone who has a D II has invested between $700 and
$1000 dollars in it right? If your car needed new tires would you say to
yourself " I can take apart my kid's bicycle and use the tires to fix up my
car"? So yes it costs 50.00 but you can get at least three replacements from
one kit.
I sent my finding to Gary at Ten-Tec service and passed it on to Stan in the
sales department. So the ball is back in their court also to assure D-II owners
that their radios will not be orphaned. Lets see if they take the lead, but
knowing how conservative they are I think one of us will have to try it and
report back.
I think the material will work just fine and I am also puzzled at to why TT has
not done this but I'm sure they have enough work to do. I looked at it this
way, they have helped me with problems a lot more than I have helped them.
Being part of the TT family means we share ideas and forgive each other's
shortcomings. Try getting this kind of service and comraderie from Kenwood or
Yeasu.
Sorry to rant like this but I'm working on a Saturday and I would much rather be
home playing with a radio.
Pete Ferrand wrote:
> Thanks everyone for helping to find a source for the backlights.
>
> I'm a little dismayed, however, to note that Ten-Tec, which has not had a
> solution to this problem for so long could not discover this source. They
> wouldn't have had to look very hard; I removed the el panel from my Delta II
> (yes it was real easy following the directions here) to find the panel was
> made by Eltech, the *same* company we're talking about dealing with here!
>
SNIP--
Carl Hyde
carl.s.hyde@lmco.com
Desk: (609) 866-6386
Fax: (609) 866-6414
POLITICS: From the Latin prefix "Poli" meaning "Many" and the word "Tics"
meaning "blood sucking parasites"
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