Michael A. Terrell wrote:
wrote:
Most of the hams I knew as a kid were home brewers. They were not
designers but they could build a piece of equipment form a magazine
article or the handbook. I lived about an hour from Mendelson's in
dayton Ohio, and I ran into a lot of hams there, digging through the
unmarked bins of parts to build their latest project or repair one of
their projects.
Been there, did that. I built my first SW receiver from junk parts I
picked up along Radio Row in Philly. Radio Merit Badge booklet in hand
circa 1950. Things have changed a bit since then though . . . (?!)
In general the average ham learns as much about electronics
as he/she needs to satisfy their enjoyment of the hobby. Which on
average ain't much in this day of cheap whizzy plug 'n play
equipment.
Beast on reality as you might but that's the way it is.
The whole idea of a rig that isn't intended to be serviced is what
kills my interest in the hobby. Too many custom parts made of
"Unobtaium" and refusing to release schematics and manuals
Maybe it's happened but personally I've never heard of an instance of
anyone with a broken mainstream radio not being able to fix it or get
it fixed because the manuals and/or the schematics couldn't be located.
Parts are another story but that's SOP. Try to buy all the parts for a
1980 Ford from a dealer.
really don't
inspire any confidence in imported whiz bang rigs.
All commodity widgets have design lifetimes particularly when they are
based in the fast-moving field of electronics Japanese and otherwise.
But there are tens of thousands of 20-year-old pieces of complex ham
gear still regularly on the air. I can't imagine why you would expect
any more than that for the service life of chunks of entertainment
electronics.
Not that I prefer
tube only rigs, but they were built to do their job for years. Maybe
the rest of the ham's life if he took decent care of his equipment.
A
lot of newer rigs end up as parts units because some cheap component
is
NLA. Do you think many of these all plastic LCD display radios will
still work when they are 20 years old?
I have no idea but a buddy of mine has an IC-781 xcvr which cost him
over $6k 18 years ago and it's color LCD display still works as well as
it did out-of-the-box. Boeing is replacing the conventional instruments
in it's airliner panels with color LCD panels which better last 20
years and more or Boeing is gonna get spanked plenty.
I was told that a couple retired EEs in the local club did all
their
repairs and I didn't know enough to be of any help. Then they told
me
to "stuff" my offer of free electronic components to help them with
repairs.
Are you kidding? That's nuts. With all due respect I'd like to hear the
other side of that one.
In this sense and given the obvious lack of interest in the arcane
details of electronics amongst the average members of the average
neighborhood ham radio club you should not have known that your
offer
to participate was a no-counter. They don't "maintain" their
radios,
they don't need your expertise, they simply ship their broken
radios
off to the repair shops to get fixed. In short "Now You're Talking"
fits their agenda and your's simply does not. In another sense ham
radio clubs are private entities conventionally for hams and
prospective hams only. As an analogy what you did was show up at a
bow-hunters club with a .45-70 powder-burner and expect any
interest in
an offer to "help".
w3rv
Sorry, but that analogy just doesn't work. Several members told me
they wanted to do minor repairs on their equipment but they didn't
have
access to the tools or equipment anymore. I offered them free use of
my
shop and to give them most of the components from my old repair
business
if I had what they needed and was laughed at.
Makes no sense at all, I'd leap on an offer like that if I needed acess
to an RF bench because I'm really ill-equipped in this area. Must be
something in their water.
As far as weapons, I have
used a bow but I prefer an M-72. ;-)
Yeah, RIGHT . . ! Whoosh: Thud. So re-up, Rumsfeld is offering bonuses.
A lot of hams in Ohio were glad that I was willing to help out
including an old ham in his late 70s that brought me a home brew
receiver that a SK friend of his had built 20 years before. He had
lost
the hand drawn schematics and had a tear rolling down his cheek as he
asked if there was any way I could possibly help him. He told me
that
he had been to every two way shop and ham equipment dealer to try to
find someone to work on it and that one of them told him I was the
only
one in the county crazy enough to even attempt a repair. I tore it
down
and found a couple burnt resistors and shorted caps. I did a little
math, dug around and found the parts. He was crying when the
receiver
came to life and kept thanking me. I charged him $10 and he hurried
home to get back on the air. Helping someone like that is better
than
spending hours on the air to me.
Nice job. Could not agree more.
In a contorted way it appears that thee and me are basically the same
basic breed of radio alley cat. Bear with me here. It's a tale. I got
into ham radio over a half century because I wanted to move up from
SWLing and just reading National Geographic as a kid to get on the air
and communicate with others in foreign places. I'm still at it and in
my mind the magic of DXing the HF airwaves hasn't diminished a bit.
Here's part of the convergence: For the most part I simply can't stand
most neighborhood radio clubs for all the reasons you've cited recently
here and there in this NG. The poltics, the general clulessness, the
rambling disorganization, the lack of interest in my particular hot
buttons, etc. So I don't bother with 'em.
Different strokes?
You bet. I found my "cure" for the local radio clubs many years ago.
I'm a member of a wide-area regional ham club which is tightly focused
of HF DXing and DX contesting, a bunch who have the same narrow
interests I have. Works for me, maybe the format would work for you.
There's some huge number of electronics hobbyists across the country
including hams who get their jollies from tube electronics. Since
you're in what amounts to "geezer alley" in central Florida I expect
that there is a higher concentration of "tube huggers"there than one
would find elsewhere in the country. If I had your interests and lived
where you do I'd seriously consider poking around the area for others
of your ilk to clump with and form some sort of club centered on tube
radio, etc.
--
Former professional electron wrangler.
Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
w3rv