Behold, Mike Andrews scribed on tube chassis:

Gregg wrote:
Behold, John Miles scribed on tube chassis:

Somehow, I doubt many of those 20 WPM Extras making equine posteriors
out of themselves on 75 fone are doing so on homebrew rigs.

The idea is the advanced ticket people can buy commercial rigs.

I was reading some of the the history of Ham radio though and it seems
today's ham's rarely fit the bill :-(

What happened?

snip

Nowadays the commercial gear is *SO* much more advanced than anything
the average ham can design and build[1], or even build from a design
someone else worked out, that it's just easier to buy an appliance to
get the performance one wants. Construction is hard, it requires time
and expensive materials, and the overall bill for the appliance most of
the time is less than it would cost (including time) to build a
comparable device.

[1] There are exceptions, and they appear as showcase examples in
the ARRL Handbook and other places.

Point taken. Myself, I am a tubehead, but I would love to design a
PLL-PIC based VFO for my tubes. After all the readin' and studyin' I did
on the subject, I have come to the conclusion to let a dedicated
solid-state-aholic mate design one and I just build it.

Are we just too old?

--
Gregg "t3h g33k"
http://geek.scorpiorising.ca
*Ratings are for transistors, tubes have guidelines*