In article , Bill Turner
writes
On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 16:41:21 +0000, andrew wrote:

RIP Amateur Radio as a technical pursuit.

_________________________________________________ ________

I sympathize with your feelings Andrew, but Amateur Radio is changing
and there's little we can do about it.

I have homebrewed more stuff than I can remember but those days are
gone. I am proud of the complete 40 meter mobile SSB rig I designed and
built from scratch, but I would not expect anyone these days to
duplicate the feat. It's just not cost-effective and the technology is
so much better now besides.

We need to focus on what Amateur Radio needs to become and not get
dragged down by pining for the olden days.

Although a little reminiscing now and then is ok by me. :-)

Hi Bill,

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that everyone should be able to
design and build a transceiver from scratch (I know I couldn't).
However, I do have enough knowledge to troubleshoot and fix problems
when I let the smoke out of something!!!

Personally, I believe that in a technical hobby the participants should
at least have a reasonable technical knowledge so they can understand
what they are doing instead of ignorantly causing untold QRM after
they've twiddled pots inside the radio. The current examining system is
not testing for that, and they are now going to make it even easier.....

If it was as easy to get a driving licence as it is to get a ham licence
today, there would be absolute carnage on the roads because the new
drivers would have no knowledge about the theoretical side (i.e. the
highway code in the UK or whatever the equivalent is in the States). If
people don't want to put the effort in to learn the technical side then
they should stick to the area of the radio hobby that uses type approved
equipment (i.e. CB). Come to think of it, the new M3 licence in the UK
is restricted to using type approved equipment... Hmmmm.

One other thing, I don't really pine for the 'old days' as the old days
of amateur radio to me is around 1990 when I was licensed (I'm still
only 33 years old)

Andrew Williamson GI0NWG / AC6WI
Homepage = http://www.gi0nwg.freeserve.co.uk/

One of the ZL9CI gang
http://www.qsl.net/zl9ci/