Hi The coin cell / backup battery swap out is something we probably will become more familiar with on a *lot* of gear. The battery backed up RAM idea is now old enough that there is a large population of test gear / radios / telecom gear out there with this “feature”. In some cases the loss of the battery is a temporary issue. In a lot of others it’s a significant problem.
If you are buying a piece of gear that has important stuff in RAM, the big question is — has the data been lost already? I have bought gear that had a good battery in it, but bad data. If the gear comes up with “data lost” on the screen, that’s easy to spot. In most cases …not so easy at all. Some gear might be configurable by normal means. Almost everything I’ve seen needs a “factory only” shoot from a test set that probably no longer exists. Yes, there’s nothing magic in that test set. The RAM just has bits in it. Figuring out what all the bits need to be without any documentation is not easy. One might hope that as the gear becomes obsolete, the information about what’s what would be released to the public. Based on … errr …. on the job experience - not so likely. The data rarely is documented in a “public compatible” fashion. One guy’s notes tell you what the test setup looks like. Another set of notes go into the code. Both are buried in log books from who knows when. Beyond this, someone actively has to agree to release “corporate IP”. The complex part of that is the fact that the calibration techniques probably live on in a modern piece of gear. Not at all easy …. Bob _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
