On 30 Jan 2007 02:14:40 -0800, wrote:
On Jan 29, 1:02?pm, Bob Brock wrote:
On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:52:16 -0500, "KH6HZ" wrote:
"Bob Brock" writes:

The economy of scale situation in ham radio today is mail order/
internet sales, plus hamfest/conventions. because they're the most
competitive for most things. Some manufacturers sell don't sell
through dealers at all - Ten Tec and Elecraft are two examples.

Don't confuse lack of customers with economy of scale. Those little
guys can't compete with the big boys any better than the local shops
can compete with Wal-Mart.

True enough. But, in contrast, my wife could have
bought her iRobot set from Sears. [Sears began in
Chicago, too...:-) ] But, iRobot sold a package of
Roomba and Scooba DIRECT for slightly less than what
Sears was charging.

Note: The iRobot products owe their workability to
solid-state ELECTRONICS, especially microprocessors.
Modern-day HF transceivers owe their workability to
solid-state ELECTRONICS, especially microprocessors.

Wal-Mart, Target, K-Mart, Sears, J.C.Penney all sell
direct through the Internet. Nobody (except John
Smith I) seems to recognize the truly HUGE market
revolution brought on by the Internet. Amazon.com
did...[push, push]


I see that, in certain instances, you do understand economy of scale.
Why you reject other identical instances is a mystery to me.

We shall now pause while Cranky thinks up a proper
rationalization of how he is "always correct"... :-)


How many of us first became aware of the existence of local amateurs
by seeing their antennas?

I wouldn't know since that doesn't apply to me. I became interested
in ham radio and SWL when I met the guy who came out to replace some
tubes in my Grandfather's TV. Back then most commercial radio was AM
and you could listen to stations from all over late at night on a
regular radio. The guy gave me a used short wave radio and I've been
hooked ever since.

My first "interest" in radio was as a young teen-ager
building and flying model aircraft. I read about "radio
control" of them and thought that would be neat. One
of the adult model flyers in the club was a pre-WW2
amateur as well as a pro licensee in radio working for
the CAA. [was so long ago that it wouldn't be NASA
for a while and 'NOAA' didn't exist then...:-) ]

My $98 (retail) National NC-57 receiver was bought via
a $100 prize earned in competitive free-flight model
flying in Detroit, MI, in 1948. Still have the trophy
but the NC-57 has aged more than me...:-)

Everyone has a different episode of first-discovery but
it is proclaimed that only 'certain kinds' of discovery
are the 'only right-and-proper' ones. Ptui.

That was a long time ago though and the new generations have different
motivators. I think that one of the biggest [de]motivators is the stigma
of current CB operations and that a lot of people don't recognize the
difference between the two.

There I agree totally. "CB" came into being in 1958.
I was then a calibration technician at the Ramo-
Wooldridge Corporation Standards Lab in El Segundo, CA.
The lab supervisor was Ed Dodds (not sure of his call-
sign but could have been W6AFU or close to it, anyway
he was a pre-WW2 amateur and had a full Collins station).
Ed didn't think much of this "11-meter Charley Brown"
thing but he didn't despise it either. A lot of the
other olde-tymers at RW denounced it all over the place.
"HOW DARE THE FCC TAKE AWAY *OUR* 11-METER BAND?"
"HOW DARE THE FCC LET CIVILIANS ON HF RADIO WITHOUT A
CODE TEST or even a license test?!?" Blah, blah, blah,
etc. Oh, such a terrible thing!!! That was, as I see
it a time of the birthing of bigotry against CB that
remains in the later-generation amateur community.

No sweat to me. I put a Viking Messenger CB in my
aluminum-body '53 Austin-Healey in 1959 and had a lot
of fun with it. A lot of folks around here in LA did
similar, mobile or fixed. Fabulous "ground plane"
for a base-loaded short whip. Wasn't interested in
"DX." I liked the mobile communications thing, to be
able to talk to PEOPLE, not stations or callsigns.
That was the original intent of "CB," not the olde-
tyme hammature activity of "work DX on HF with CW."

Forty-nine years later the CB users outnumber hams
by at least six to one [I think the EIA quit trying
to take a measure of the number years ago]. It's a
standard item in the cab for highway truckers now.

I look to the right of my computer and see one of the
pair of Motorola FRS-GMRS handy-talkies that was
purchased at Fry's Electronics for less than $50 the
pair. My wife and I use it in and around the house.
I can close my hand around it. Rechargeable NiMH
batteries, AC dual charger part of the sales pack.
According to the 2003 FCC Panel on Unlicensed Radio
there were 15 million FRS radios sold back then.

I don't use "CB" mobile now, haven't since 1981.
A cell phone works just dandy for us on highways
now on one- and two-thousand mile drives cross-
country in the USA. But, according to the morse
mavens still flapping their worn wings prior to
15 Dec 06, I could ONLY be LEGALLY and MORALLY
"CORRECT" by passing a morse code test for an
amateur radio license!!! :-)

Regards,
LA

PS: The new Mouser Feb-Apr 2007 catalog 629 arrived
in today's (30 Jan 07) mail. 1,838 pages. 2 3/16"
thick at the spine. Good to know they are still
"discovering themselves." :-)