xxx wrote on Fri, 20 Apr 2007 22:45:26 EDT

AF6AY wrote:
xxx wrote on Thu, 19 Apr 2007 07:41:27 EDT:

"Once upon a time" is approximately the time period prior to
World War II...the first 44 years of "radio" as a communications
medium.

I would have extended that time frame into the 1960's or even the
1970's when moonbounce experiments still made the news.

The first-ever successful moonbounce was done by the U.S.
Army Signal Corps in the forties right after end of WWII.
The Army dubbed that experiment "Project Diana." That
was two decades prior to the 1960s.

My choice of the first 44 years versus the last 67 years
may seem arbitrary but the Second World War was a decided
changeover time in technology of all electronics, including
that small subset of it called radio.

Your point is not clear. Are you claiming that since those
technologies originated with other radio services that the
contribution by hams was small or are you claiming that since hams
developed and popularized those technologies that hams' contribution
was large?

I do not claim anything. I summarized the major points of
technology untilized in amateur radio during the last 67
years of radio's existance. In the first 44 years of radio,
radio itself was considered the high-tech application of
electronics. The vacuum tube had some applications in audio
amplification and specialized instruments but "radio" for
one-way or two-way communications was favored. Radio then
was noted by the public as primarily for broadcasting but
the public were also aware of the "ham radio operator" in
this high-tech-of-its-day field.

After WWII, based on the necessities of expanding the
technology needs of war, electronics began spreading far
and wide, using circuits and systems rare or unheard-of
by the public prior to WWII: Television, "high-Fi" music
systems, magnetic tape recording (in the home as well as
in entertainment industry), FM broadcasting as an adjunct
to home music systems, electronic flash units for photo-
graphy, photoelectric systems for security and warning,
intercom systems, dictating machines. That was prior to
the invention of the transistor and the true start of the
solid-state era in electronics.

The transistor, various junction diode types, the
integrated circuit, then the large-scale-integrated
circuit semiconductor structures' availability can be
likened to a megaton explosion of applications and
increases in electronics use in our daily lives, from
medicine and health, to accounting and automatic control,
to all manner of consumer electronics not practically
possible prior to WWII. "Radio" per se took a back seat
in applications in the whole of the electronics
industry's design and development efforts. That's
neither good nor bad, simply that the possible number of
applications for all electronics taking advantage of
solid-state components has been almost overwhelming in
quantity and scope. That continues today.

That radio communications equipment design has adopted
many techniques and components used in other areas of
electronics should not be a detriment. Some non-radio
applications "borrowed" from radio design and one even
preceded radio use: Frequency-multiplexed multi-channel
carrier systems for long-distance wired telephony, also
known as Single Sideband. :-)

A microprocessor or microcontroller is entirely digital
in operation, yet is applied to analog radio now almost
universally. That was not possible prior to 1970,
yet amateur radio designs from off-the-shelf today
nearly all use them for a large variety of functions,
everything from HTs to top-of-the-line HF DX machines
down to test equipment. It ENABLES many functions not
available prior to WWII designs and its substitutes for
old design funcions are superior in operation.

Electronics (including radio) does considerable "cross-
pollination" of circuits and subsystems from one
specialty area to another. That is good rather than
bad. "Radio" has lost its specific nature of exclusivity
in structure of all-analog circuits. The vacuum tube is
almost obsolete for new radios, surviving only in high-
power RF amplifiers for amateur, commercial, and broad-
casting use. Even those are getting competition from
high-frequency power transistor modular architectures.
The cathode-ray tube is going that way, replaced with
solid-state LCD, TFT, Plasma flat display screens, not
just in television but also in oscillography and small
instrumentation plus consumer applications like gas
ranges, microwaves, and lawn sprinkler controllers.
About the only area of vacuum tubes not quite (yet)
replaced by solid-state are high-sensitivity photo-
multipliers and night observation devices. Even those
are seeing competition now.

Innovation and invention today depends more on the
adaptation of existing components and subsystems and
putting them together than outright invention-from-
scratch. Even the U.S. Patent Office is aware of that.
My single patent grant in 1974 was #3,848,191. GAP
Antenna Products got one in 1997 as #5,592,183 (reading
from a GAP pamphlet). Nearly 2 million Patents granted
in only about 25 years. :-)

Radio per se is not much involved in just trying to get
a handle on how the whole thing works. That was needed
in its first four decades. Messrs Hartley, Colpitts,
and Pierce gave us basic oscillators necessary to start
generating RF but later came Butler and others with
variations using 3rd, 5th, even 7th overtone crystal
controlled oscillators, plus the Varian brothers'
Klystron and the original Magnetron (from the UK).
Would we have a microwave oven in nearly every kitchen
today if the magnetron had not been invented? :-)

BTW, the most-used oscillator circuit of today is based
on the CMOS inverter with feedback through a quartz
crystal or other resonator. No name associated with it.
Every microprocessor has such a clock oscillator, active
devices usually built-in.


If you look at the foundational documents of ham radio (FCC Part
97, current test question pools), it is made quite clear that ham
radio exists for the primary purpose of having trained radio
operators available in case of emergency. Contributing to the
advancement of the radio art comes next. Having an enjoyable hobby is
not even mentioned.

I have a 1997 complete 5-volume set of Title 47 Code of Federal
Regulations and the current copy of Part 97, Title 47 C.F.R.
Nowhere is the word "hobby" written in those regulations. That
is de jure. De facto is that amateur radio is, by and large, a
hobby radio activity, done for personal reasons and not for
monetary compensation. The FCC is aware of that, the ARRL is
aware of that, the IARU is aware of that, hundreds of different
nation's administrations are aware of that.

I also have a complete set of the current NCVEC Question Pools,
obtained from www.ncvec.org directly; such are not found in
Part 97...but should be available through any of the many VECs.

It was not clear to me that my amateur radio test taken and
passed on 25 February 2007 was for an Amateur Emergency Radio
Operator. I was already a General Radiotelephone Operator
(Commercial) since taking and passing my First Class Radio-
telephone (Commercial) operator license in 1956. Prior to
that the United States Army had trained me to operate and
maintain radio communications equipment on HF, VHF, UHF, and
microwave bands. I've already used my First 'Phone/GROL in
other radio services. In various Parts of Title 47 C.F.R.,
the FCC specifically states that any emergency situation
involving safety of life, no license is required to use a
radio to seek help. Why would I have gotten an Amateur Radio
license to be an emergency operator? I could have joined
the Los Angeles Auxilliary Communications Service directly
or even the California (state) Auxilliary Communications
Service (they don't require any license at all). The test
session was in an L.A. ACS station building, formerly a
small fire house for the LAFD. I got my Amateur Radio
Operator license for use in a personal hobby. That isn't
against the law or even unpatriotic.


Your comments don't follow from mine. I stated that the FCC, in
effect, 'overruled' the ARRL and the old hams when it eliminated the
code test. The key question is 'WHY did the FCC do that.' I am
convinced that the FCC perceived the code requirement as being at the
root of ham radio's failure to innovate or provide training to
subsequent generations. The FCC killed it in order to end ham radio's
decades-long stagnation.

You are welcome to your opinion. Seventeen years ago the
FCC answered a public request when it issued a Notice of
Proposed Rule Making on the creation of the no-code-test
Technician class license. It said then that the Commission
did not feel a test for Morse Code skill/comprehension was
necessary in its regulatory position of determining whether
or not an applicant was worthy of being granted an amateur
radio license. A copy is available at www.nocode.org as
FCC 90-53. Nine years later in Report and Order 99-412
('Restructuring') the Commission stated nearly the same when
it dropped all Morse Code test rates to 5 words per minute
equivalent. By far, the largest and fastest growing U.S.
Amateur Radio Service license class has been the no-code-test
Technician class. The peak in number of amateur licenses
granted occurred in 2003.

I see all of that as public demand, not to "support" amateur
radio. From the Communications Act of 1934 to the
Telecommunications Act of 1996 (both Laws of Congress) the
FCC is obliged to regulate civil communications services of
the United States. It is not obliged to support any one
radio service over and above any other.

73, Len AF6AY