Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Re: A Humble Request....for allowing to copy Circuit into PCB

[Marcus D. Leech]

On 01/11/2011 07:16 AM, James Hall wrote:
> back?
>
> Why is it that the USRP was $450, then discontinued to bring out the
> USRP2 for $700 now it's being discontinued for a new design that will
> be marketed at $1700? I predict that the next revision after that will
> cost even more. Even if it's to pay for all the new technology in each
> design, it's still troublesome that if I wanted the same capability
> then I'd be forced into paying the ever raising price the longer I
> wait to buy one. I doubt they're really for me though. Those prices
> are for commercial companies where that sort of thing isn't even
> pocket change. It's what they dig out of the couch cushions. That or
> hams that can afford luxury radios in the $2-4k+ range.
>
You're confused.

The USRP1, which was *introduced* back in 2004 (6 years ago!) for $450,
is now $700.00, and still
  available, and still very much in use.  The USRP2 was introduced a
couple of years ago for $1400.00,
  and is being phased-out due to the unavailability of a critical part,
and is being replaced with the
  N210, which is $1700.00.

The original $450.00 price for the USRP1 was likely introductory
pricing--a very common practice in
  the industry to get your product "out there", without initially
worrying about making a profit on it.
  But since Ettus Research is a *business*, rather than a charity, I
have to assume that the price went
  up so that Matt could continue to eat and pay his rent.

I think what comes out of this is that something like the Charleston SDR
might fit the bill for
  "poor student/hobbiest experimenter".  Someone needs to bug the
developer of the Charleston SDR to
  get his GnuRadio support into the mainstream.


-- 
Principal Investigator
Shirleys Bay Radio Astronomy Consortium
http://www.sbrac.org