On a similar "note" one of my other hobbies is breeding endangered
species birds.  These birds are very expensive to purchase when
available, and extremely difficult to breed otherwise they would not
be nearing extinction nor expensive!

The $64 question is whether the environment or the genetics of the
birds are causing the decline.  Over the last ten years, I took it upon
myself to study this in great detail, talking to every bird expert on
the planet and getting interested in a "new" science that amounts to
doing Caesarian sections on eggs that theoretically could hatch a baby
chick but the chick is too weak to hatch on its own.  This involves a
strong stomach and lots of bloody procedures and staying up all night
through as many as three nights monitoring the bird.  You can't leave
the room for more than a few minutes.

The incubation process, temperature and humidity experiments meant that
I had to invest in roughly $5K worth of equipment, such as incubators,
Humidifying and dehumidifying control devices, analytic scales and even
A heart monitoring system that tells me how the bird is doing in the
egg.  Out of 50 attempts, I have maybe 10 successes.

The salient point here was that as I talked to the other "experts"
trying to become an "expert" myself as well as advance what had already
been done, I came to the conclusion controlling temperatures to even
0.1 degree F inside an incubator which was inside a temperature- and
humidity-controlled room was close to impossible with inexpensive
($5K) equipment.

I know virtually nothing about electronics but a little bit about
thermodynamics.  This piano tuning system seems impossible to control
from my standpoint of experience, but just like the bird people I can
only guess piano people like to try these things anyway and thus the
reason such devices exist in the first place.  I am under the
impression they will be made available for self-installation in any
piano and I may try one out.

Don Winter