The AM Forum

And fake slopbucket appliance microphones.

Who would have ever thought of this? (http://www.icom.co.jp/world/notice/index.html)

Counterfeit OEM products for battery packs, chargers, unique cables, and other accessories have long been a problem for many manufacturers over the years and not just in ham radio.

How are counterfeit OEM accessories different from after-market accessories?

Many times "aftermarket" or "fake" components, or accesories work better than the origional!

Seems to me Icom should start looking in it's own back yard. To start with the molded plastic parts of the radio itself seem to be identical on the HT and that multifunction microphone. I doubt very much a knock off company would go to all of the trouble to design an exact copy. especially the mic. The parts are probably lifted from the OEM molds. Some unscrupulous third world manufacturer cranks out one case for the knock offs and ten for the OEM. Hmmm. sounds like more profit! I wonder how close the internal circuit boards are? I'll bet they show the same close match.

In the case of Li-ion batteries, it can be very unsafe and even deadly. A man in Korea and one in China were killed when his counterfeit cellphone battery exploded in his shirt pocket. Explosions are common enough. The issue with counterfeit batteries is that they often have inferior cells and in the case of Li-ion, are sometimes missing certain safety features such as electronic fuses, thermal sensors, and electronic switches to cut off the battery if it gets hot. I would not ever use a questionable Li-ion battery. Other batteries are not as dangerous, but there is something about Li-ion that can make them unstable and start a chemical reaction that leads to pressure build up and a burst cell.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphone-explosion/man-killed-by-cellphone-explosion-327338.php
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/02/man-killed-by-c/
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/cell_phone_batteries.html
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/technology/3958050/detail.html
http://trib.com/news/local/article_1efd43e6-bfe2-5086-b1a8-71246125a408.html

Many companies become their own worst enemy because once they outsource production their ability to maintain security is greatly reduced.  This practice also creates future competition/replacement because you are transferring knowledge to a company that will soon no longer need its foreign master.  Once you have the manufacturing part down you can develop (or outsource) marketing programs.  Japanese electronic and musical instrument companies have experienced this and optics will be the next to fall.  I bought our daughter a very nice lab grade microscope from a Chinese firm which also does production work for several "name brand" companies.

Somewhat related to this are the gray market goods which are genuine but are being sold in a market other than the one for which they were originally intended.  You will find dual pricing on many of the better SLR camera bodies and lens depending upon whether you buy the U.S. or other market version.  The downside is warranty (or rather lack thereof).  Sometimes the results of a gray market purchase are more humorous and the Cabbage Patch kids are one of the more famous examples of this issue.  When a huge shortage developed in the U.S. a distributor brought in a bunch of the product from another market.  Since the adoption papers were a major feature of this product there were a lot of disappointed kids Christmas morning when they found all of the paperwork was in Chinese.

Excellent post Rodger!
Right on point, once the proverbial genie is out of the bottle, it is too late.
I'm deeply worried about the strategic hand up we're giving folks who may soon be not just our trade, but possibly future military adversaries. The backbone of America has always been our manufacturing industries, you can't give that away and expect the same quality of life in America's heartlands, not everyone can, or wants to, work for Microsoft or Google. This offshoring has really stratified the American class system, deeply squeezing the middle class, while ballooning the lower and upper socioeconomic groups.

-Bruce

These stories make me wonder if and when everyone is driving an electric car and the horrific car fires that may occur in a crash. I know that there are probably many safety things build in but if man made it, it can go bad at some point. 

Why would an electric car in a horrific car fire be any different then a gasoline powered car in a horrific car fire?

I still remember about 20 some years ago buying a set of motor mounts for my truck from a local parts house known for selling higher grade parts. they catered more to the professional shop than the DIYer. The boxes had all of the familiar "Borg-Warner' markings on them. I was hyellified when I opened the boxes and removed the mounts, and saw little gold "made in China" stickers on them! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

A the time I worked for a local repair shop that was owned by a consortium of asian fellows. One of them went out to buy us a new floor jack as ours was pyissing oil out all over the floor. IIRC he may have even got it from Sears. When he opened it and took it out of the box, he saw a "Made in Japan" sticker on it. He was hyellified and put it back into the box and took it back.

Needless to say, I was laughing my ass off at him. I asked him "you came from over there, can we send you back"  ;D  ;D He just laughed a little and took the jack back.

Either way, there both bad but so far I haven't read about any hybrid cars burning as yet.

Soon, counterfeit and even high quality aftermarket products will not work in the usual equipment. The manufacturers have decided they can tell you wnat you can use and what you can not. They feel that they now lose their justly entitled money from replacement items. There are very economically made and highly secure encryption IC chips to be used in "authorized" supplies like printer cartridges, all sorts of batteries, and the like. Not only will this scheme prevent any off-brand item from working because the unauthoriozed accessory can't spit back the proper encrypted data to the appliance's CPU, but it has a built in counter so that it will simply "quit working" after so much time or so many uses, therefore negating the value of refilling toner or ink cartridges or rebuilding bettery packs. It is a real knockout, works great, and any tampering pops the keys and it's off to the store to buy the authorized item only.

But hackers will find a way around all that. Whether or not it involves saving serious money, it's still a challenge.