"N2EY" wrote:

Here's one answer:

How many hams do you know who have designed,
built and operate homebrew stations? Not kits, not
partly home-made, not with homebrew accessories,
but 100% built-from-scratch amateur radio receivers,
transmitters, transceivers, antennas, power supplies,
etc.?

One of the oft-repeated claims has been that the
code tests kept out "technically inclined" individuals.
At least one NCTA (Vshah101) has claimed that
"no self-respecting EE would use CW". Etc.

(snip) If/when FCC dumps Element 1, will we see a
lot more homebrew HF stations?


Lets face it, homebrewing just isn't very popular today, in any license
class. Part of that is due to changing radio technology. It's fairly hard to
homebrew a radio today capable of competing with even the most basic
commercial product. Most are simply choosing to buy rather than build.

Those who are interested in electronics mainly focus their efforts on
things outside ham radio. For example, I'm currently interested in robotics.
At the same time, I'm doing almost nothing (electronics related) in ham
radio itself. A friend, also a ham, is obsessed with security devices.
Likewise, I don't see him doing much in ham radio. But, of course, most I've
met have no interest in electronics at all, or limit that to kit building or
very simple projects.

So, to answer your question, I don't think we're going to see a lot more
homebrew HF stations, with or without a change in the code testing
requirement.


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/