Dave:

Interesting, I expect the posts on rec.radio.amateur.homebrew,
rec.radio.amateur.equipment, rec.radio.amateur.swap to change to
reflect that any day now!

John

On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 22:19:18 -0400, Dave Holford wrote:

Fascinating, I don't know who you talk to but I can only think of a couple of people I know
using Drake stuff, and then only as collectors items or though nostalgia. Can't remember the
last time I heard someone mention Henry, except in an inductor value, and one of the few
pictures of Heathkit equipment I have seen in a long time was in a magazine on antique
equipment a (younger) friend showed me a couple of weeks ago.

I have a real hard time believing that the long overdue dropping of CW will result in much
of an influx to HF. If they were interested in HF they would already be here.

I've had a two hour HF swap shop running in the background and I don't think I heard
anything that old being offered for sale or looked for except for a couple of antique RCA,
Hammarlund and National receivers, but they were in the antiques listing. Plenty of DSP rigs
and digital stuff, a few people looking for specialized digital ICs. It is quite common to
hear current generation equipment being sold by very elderly hams due to deteriorating
health and/or moving into nursing homes or apartments where they must give up the hobby.

I'm having coffee with an 81 year old tomorrow and he has a DSP HF rig; and a software
defined receiver running on his backup PC, which he also uses to watch TV and movies. He
usually has at least one PC in pieces as he reconfigures it and has been inside his ICOM and
Kenwood HF rigs with a soldering iron more than once, although as his age creeps up he is
reducing those activities somewhat. He will probably want to discuss optimizing the data
base for his SDR receiver.

Not every ham over 40 is using a hand key to a crystal controlled 6L6.

Dave


John Smith wrote:

Dave:

Interesting, when I have exchanged station pics, I have never seen the new
equip, other than my own...

When I exchange equip descriptions, everyone is mentioning drake, henry,
heathkit, etc... frankly, last months maybe a year--I gave up paying close
attention... in fact, my xmitter pci card is a proto-type which an
engineer made a gift of to me when I worked on some software to support
it (they will actually market a USB model.) Last time I chatted with him,
it was still sitting on his companies "back shelf" waiting for the market
to develop... they strongly support dropping CW and expect an influx of
new hams which they feel will accept the equipment and make profitable the
sales. In the meantime they market to police, fire, hospitals, gov't...

John

On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 20:55:15 -0400, Dave Holford wrote:

(Apologies to the top posting hater community, but I decided to follow John's lead).

Got the wrong guy John.

I've been using most of that stuff for quite a while, and I could point you to a dozen
or so hams well over the age of 70 who not only use it; they understand how it works
and some even tinker with the hardware and software.

I'm not quite that old yet, but it ain't always that easy to keep up with some of them
when they discuss their latest project.

About a quarter of a century ago, I was teaching a system using a synthesized HF
sideband transceiver, on a single PCB about 2 or 3 inches square, running from about 7
to 10MHz and digitally controlled either locally or remotely (up to 100 transceivers
controlled from a DEC minicomputer) - would love to have slipped one in my shirt
pocket, taken it home and added a linear! Funnily enough most of the guys I was
working with have decided to become hams within the last 10 or 15 years.

The HF receiver card in one of my PCs gets far more use than my stand-alone
transceivers with the DSP etc. the card is much more versatile - more modes,
bandwidths etc. etc.. Software defined is the way to go.

But, and it is a fair sized but, I find I can have much more detailed and interesting
discussions of this technology with older rather than younger folks. I find (just my
experience and maybe the folks I choose to hang out with) that the younger generation
tend to be users who know no more about how it works than my granny knew about how her
telephone worked. But boy can they use it!

My generation understood it down to the electron level.
My kids understood it down to the IC level.
My grand kids (teenagers - with a few exceptions) know how to use it but don't
understand, or really care, how it works.

Can't blame them, it's progress. The systems have become so complex that one pretty
much has to specialize and folks with a general knowledge of hardware and software,
theory and practice of entire systems are becoming a vanishing breed. That is true of
much more than communications technology - the guy at the corner gas station probably
can't fix your anti-skid braking system any more than the local pharmacy can sell you
the part to fix your TV any more.

Dave
Sitting at his computer listening to an HF net on his software defined radio running
on the same processor.


John Smith wrote:

Dave:

No one is denying you the right to your religion of "amateur worship", we
all need some high power to look up to. But, you must realize you are in
a church which has a very small following (mostly other hams, and NOT all
of them!)

Fact is, the computer is a TV with a tv card inserted--a stereo system
with a high quality audio card, tuner card inserted--a cd music player
with cd and proper software--a dvd player with a dvd-cd and proper
software--a home security system with the proper card and related software
and backup-power supply--and soon to be an amateur rig with proper
receiver card and xmitter card (some are already there!)

Fact is, the computer IS amateurs future--like it or not... only reason
the future is not here right now, old amateurs can't adapt and die
first... and serve as a hindrance to the new minds bringing the future
with them...

John

On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 13:20:06 -0400, Dave Holford wrote:



Dee Flint wrote:

"John Smith" wrote in message
news PM:

Let me give a summary of the "real world."

If you were a child today, you would grow up with the computer.

In elementary school your first "pen pal" would be in a foreign country
and you would communicate with them via the internet. You would learn to
IM, IRC, EMAIL, MSN CHAT, YAHOO, WEB CAM, etc....

By high school you would be picking up a computer script and/or language
and at least have a basic knowledge of programming. Your first hardware
project would most likely be computer related.

Somewhere along this line, you bump into a ham or a few. You look at them
using their equipment, it is apparent the internet is superior. They lack
the ability to exchange pics, apps, music, videos, documents, etc. by
transmissions taking seconds or minutes. Then, they show you a CW key and
you are dumb struck, and leave. You return to the internet and current
technology, never to stray again... you begin a web site and consider
what position you would like in the computer field, when you grow up...

John


The days of kids being computer gurus have already come and gone. Now they
just play video games and chat. Very few get interested in programming.
Very few do a hardware project. They take their computers to the shop for
upgrades. They only people that I have observed doing their own hardware
upgrades, rebuilding computers, etc are the middle aged and the "old farts"
that you seem to despise so.

I spend countless hours teaching our interns how to use email, spreadsheets,
etc.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

Absolutely. 25 or 30 years ago it was true. Then I could ask an exam question
which required writing an ISR in assembly, or even object.

Now, forget it! Such questions would never be allowed because the students
wouldn't understand the question.

My grandkids live for the computer. the blackberry, cellphone and their gadgets,
but have no idea what goes on behind the screen, despite the fact that their
mother is a specialist in advanced secure systems. The kid who used to cut my
grass thinks he is a programmer because he can copy a script from the internet -
but say things like "object", "hex", "bus" and this teenage expert looks at me
llike I have one eye in the middle of my forehead.

If I want to talk to people who build hardware, write efficient imaginative
software, and can actually do hex math I go to the QCWA breakfast; where someone
always has a new piece of homebrew microwave hardware or some neat little Unix
trick to show off.

The last QCWA convention I attended had fascinating discussions on cell phone
hacking, unix programming, software defined radio along with the old standards
of antennas, propagation, etc.

Yes, I'm an old fart who can hand key 25wpm (but doesn't anymmore because e-mail
is easier, not faster), use the net, write assembly programs and even use a
soldering iron. I even have some idea how the telephone system works and made
phone calls from my HT before the cell phone was invented. And I certainly do
not rank myself anywhere near the experimenters and explorers in Ham Radio; I'm
not that talented.

Dave
VE3HLU