On 03/01/2006 2:03 PM, Jeffrey Herman wrote:
On 1 Jan 2006 16:52:58 -0800, wrote in
Now, if you want to "build from scratch" totally, you
will have to learn to SUCK all the air out of the tubes
you build for yourself (honoring the "tradition").
That's rather difficult (truly, vacuum sucks)...but
much, much easier than first creating ultra-pure
silicon and then doping the microscopic areas on it to
become the solid-state device you need. [sorry you
can't build "spark" transmitters...those being forbidden
in these modern times unlike a hundred years ago]
It's so easy to look up facts nowadays, I'm surprised that you were
unable to find this: "A 17-year-old named Haddaway had built his
entire station from absolute scratch, including the making of his
own vacuum tubes...." QST February 1921.
I love hearing about that sort of thing. I recall an article reprinted
from a later era describing how an old-timer used to build his own
passive components. I actually built my own variable resistor from a
test tube full of water and some copper wire from the instructions.
Hearing that people would roll (literally) their own capacitors from
various conductors and dialectrics really impressed me.
If the argument is that it's easier to buy a ready-to-use rig, so be it.
If the argument is that this has made do-it-yourself somehow obsolete
or less valuable, I have to disagree.
QRP still has a lot of that same hobbyist appeal, even now that we have
cheap, standard parts to work from, and a pile of modern tools to
leverage them. To me, this only suggests that clever operators can
design and build even more elegant solutions to the problem of sending
an intelligible signal through the air. Doing more with less appeals to
my hacker nature (I'm a software developer by trade).
I understand this sort of thing has limited appeal for some people,
however. As people are fond of saying, there as many ways to enjoy the
hobby as there are hobbyists. Heck, even I'm a little afraid of the
high-voltage valve guys! This doesn't mean I don't think what they are
doing is valuable or interesting.
Now, I _really_ need to work on getting my Basic Qualification so I can
participate in some meaningful manner.
-- cm