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Old February 18th 14, 02:51 PM posted to uk.radio.amateur,rec.radio.amateur.homebrew
Jerry Stuckle Jerry Stuckle is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Oct 2012
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Default The "Two Transistor challenge" - taking things a bit too far?

On 2/18/2014 9:05 AM, Percy Picacity wrote:
In article ,
Jerry Stuckle wrote:

On 2/18/2014 5:58 AM, gareth wrote:
There was a time, back inthe 1920s and 1930s, that any active device
(valves in them thar days, tubes for the leftpondians) would cost nearly
a week's wages for the average working man, and so it was good economical
sense to try and use it as many ways as possible simultaneously.

Times have changes, and active devices with performance into the tens
of MegaHertz are now ten-a-penny, so what is achieved by competitions
such as the "Two Transistor Challenge" where it is the costs of switching
(manual, relays) which would be the major outlay?

Not carping, just curious.

-----ooooo-----

BUT BUT BUT, this one has no switching, apart from the Morse Key! ...


http://www.vk2zay.net/article/file/1138



I'm not familiar with this particular challenge - but similar ones I've
seen are more about the design than the cost.

Jerry, AI0K


True, but it is still a ridiculous constraint. It is about as sensible
as designing something where the first digit of every component value
had to be '4'.


Not necessarily. It takes skill to minimize components in a design
without degrading performance. Anyone with a modicum of RF design
experience can design a 5 or 10 transistor transmitter which has
reasonable output and no chirp. To do so with 2 transistors is much
more difficult.

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