Re: Smith Chart Amusements

Joel Koltner wrote:
"Hammy" <spamme@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:5kao34l79d47jll9f6lj6d70b1q0ubqicm@xxxxxxxxxx
I dont know why they don't lower the price of CAD packages,they would
probably sell much larger volume.

I suspect the market is small enough that the vendors don't feel they have enough data points to know which side of the "bell curve" they're on. Genesys started out being a competitive, inexpensive offering... but very quickly saw a lot of price inflation, disproportionately to the new features added, IMO. I also suspect that the vendors figure out the only market they're really ignoring is the hobbyist market and perhaps some small private start-ups... something like $10k for a six month software lease -- while entirely out of the realm of possibility for hobbyists -- isn't that much for any company that's looking at purchasing or leasing stuff like network analyzers... or hiring any employees. :-)


I was in the decision-maker seat for a 100+ employee division (high-tech company). On my watch we never bought any SW that ran $10K. Didn't need any. The exception was a huge enterprise data system but that's a different ballgame.


Agilent (ADS) and AWR (Microwave Office) both have academic programs where they'll grant licenses for their software to universities for nothing or almost nothing per year (e.g., <$1k); I imagine Ansoft has something similar.


This turns into a problem. One is that new hires immediately want some expensive SW and then you have to talk them out of it, showing them how a much lesser or older version SW can do the trick. The main issue though is that students seem to have lost touch with reality. Yeah, they can play VHDL and sims really well. But drop a few _real_ dual-gate FETs and some parts into their hand and they instantly assume that deer-in-the-headlights look.


Another good free program is Sonnet Lite, a field solver. James Rautio -- the founder -- is a good guy; I've met him and suspect he's the sort of fellow that, if you pitched some "interesting" ham radio/hobbyist design his way, you could convince him to hand you a license for a fancier version of Sonnet.


But teach the new kids the Smith chart and stuff first. It's always amazing to see someone's eyes light up. "Oh, you mean I can just throw in 4ft of RG192 and that's it? Even coil it up?" ... "Yup."

--
Regards, Joerg

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