With the onset of automatic ATUs, is the the final technical
skill that disambiguates the radio amateur from the CBer
being lost?

No! There is still Morse Code using a key! I consider it
a technical skill.

Irv VE6BP




"gareth" wrote in message
...
With the onset of automatic ATUs, is the the final technical
skill that disambiguates the radio amateur from the CBer
being lost?

Well. I did make my own mechanical bug key a couple of years ago.

"Irv Finkleman" wrote in message
...
No! There is still Morse Code using a key! I consider it
a technical skill.

Irv VE6BP




"gareth" wrote in message
...
With the onset of automatic ATUs, is the the final technical
skill that disambiguates the radio amateur from the CBer
being lost?

On Tue, 11 Feb 2014 20:12:14 -0000, "gareth"
wrote:

With the onset of automatic ATUs, is the the final technical
skill that disambiguates the radio amateur from the CBer
being lost?

I'll assume that's a serious question, not another CB versus ham flame
bait. What problem are you trying to solve?

The legal CB band is roughly 400 KHz wide. There's no need for an
automatic antenna tuna to match an antenna with such a narrow
operating frequency range. The matching is either built into the
antenna, preset in an external box, or just ignored by tolerating the
mismatch. Tune or match it once, and forget it.

However, HF ham radio uses frequencies with many octaves of frequency
range. Building a single 50 ohm antenna to cover all that is rather
difficult. Therefore, one uses an antenna tuner (automatic or
manual).

However, you are correct that the ATU is a dying art. I've been
zapped by the high voltages produced by antenna tuners often enough to
suspect that dying might be involved in the tuning process. If it's
not science, it must be art.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On 12/02/2014 00:32, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 11 Feb 2014 20:12:14 -0000, "gareth"
wrote:

With the onset of automatic ATUs, is the the final technical
skill that disambiguates the radio amateur from the CBer
being lost?

However, you are correct that the ATU is a dying art. I've been
zapped by the high voltages produced by antenna tuners often enough to
suspect that dying might be involved in the tuning process. If it's
not science, it must be art.

Art - most definitely. But where's the "technical skill" in adjusting a
pi network of two capacitors and one inductor?

CBers may not need to worry about ATUs, but many are quite capable of
using the pi networks on the PAs of their valved rigs which have been
re-crystalled for 6.5 and/or 27 MHz.

Kafkaësque wrote:
On 12/02/2014 00:32, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

With the onset of automatic ATUs, is the the final technical
skill that disambiguates the radio amateur from the CBer
being lost?

However, you are correct that the ATU is a dying art. I've been
zapped by the high voltages produced by antenna tuners often enough to
suspect that dying might be involved in the tuning process. If it's
not science, it must be art.

Art - most definitely. But where's the "technical skill" in adjusting a
pi network of two capacitors and one inductor?

CBers may not need to worry about ATUs, but many are quite capable of
using the pi networks on the PAs of their valved rigs which have been
re-crystalled for 6.5 and/or 27 MHz.

If memory serves, the legendary FT101 even included 27MHz coverage. It was
certainly reported to be used by more CBers than licensed amateurs.

As you suggest, CBers may have been able to compensate for the antenna
impedance over their limited bandwidth by using the Pi network.

Which demonstrates that some amateurs are put in the shade in technical
skill by CBers.

"Brian Reay" wrote in message
...
If memory serves, the legendary FT101 even included 27MHz coverage. It was
certainly reported to be used by more CBers than licensed amateurs.
As you suggest, CBers may have been able to compensate for the antenna
impedance over their limited bandwidth by using the Pi network.
Which demonstrates that some amateurs are put in the shade in technical
skill by CBers.

Once again that is a an interjection of childish venom by you; I had been
using
valve PA stages for 24 years before I picked up in 1995 a museum piece of an
FT101e
that was in such pristine condition that I elected to wait until the full
manual
was availble to me before using it on transmit. I did use it on receive, and
fitted
the narrow CW filter to it.

However, with the passage of time, when I set out as an independent
contractor,
I needed to make room for my business interests, and a number of stalled
projects
were offered for sale. Now, when you sell a TX, you would be expected to be
honest
about its capabilities, but as I had not used it on transmit I could not
vouch for its
capabilities so I said why in the notice for sale, as I was brought up to be
decent
and honest, I could not have offered it otherwise.

(You can be confident thus, that should you purchase anything from me, that
you'll get
an honest appraisal about it)

For some reason, Brian, and I regrettably have to say that it seems to arise
from an infantile
spite, you time and again make sneers about it.

That sale was 16 years ago. Grow up. man!

-----ooooo-----

From: Gareth Alun Evans
Subject: Grand End-Of-Season Sale!!
Date: 1997/12/22
Message-ID: #1/1
X-Deja-AN: 309386492
Distribution: world
X-NNTP-Posting-Host: cemetery.demon.co.uk [158.152.37.12]
Organization: Humanity
MIME-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: uk.radio.amateur



The following are available, no reasonable offer refused!

All will be skipped if no takers, (but I ain't prepared to give to you
for nothing!)

1. "Radio & TV Servicing", Original two volumes, 6 volume set, isolated
ones up till 1973, 18 volumes altogether.

2. FT101E, pristine condition, CW filter. (Purchased Longleat '95, never
used on TX by me 'cos critical tuning-up pages missing from manual!)

3. R1475 WW2 Naval Rx. plus power supply.

4. Original Amstrad 1512 PC (BW, 2 floppy) + DMP3000 printer + original
software disks plus manuals. (This one FREE to good home).

5. Two Field Telephones Type "L" + large drum of cable, believed to be
in excess of 200 yards and in one length, altho' never examined by me.

6. RA17

7. B&W Portable TV

8. 2 foot high pile of Wireless World (recent years)

9. 2 foot high pile of Practical Wireless (recent years)

10. Icom IC2E hand portable for 2m.

11. Box of 10 assorted Bakelite ex-eqpt meter movements.

12. Crystal Set, with Genuine BBC stamp.

13. Bound editions of pre 1920 "Electrical Review"

14. Pye "Wessie", originally intended for packet use.

15. Valve portable radio.

16. R210 radio (had mains transformer fitted internally by previous
owner).

17. Collection of computer memorabilia; Paper Tape punch, "LEO" core
store, Apple II with two disk drives, Nascom, Dragon, BBC, Spectrum,
Oric, ZX81 plus RAM pack (but no elastic band!)

18. One Field Telephone type "F".

19. Beta-Max vcr (historical, dinosaur, non-working)

20. Eddystone 840C

21. 227G, Early synthesized 2m mobile.

22. CB converted to 10metre FM.

23. Rabbit cordless phone (needs new nicads)


72's de Gareth G4SDW (nee G8DXY) GQRP 3339

"gareth" wrote in message
...
"Brian Reay" wrote in message
...
If memory serves, the legendary FT101 even included 27MHz coverage. It
was
certainly reported to be used by more CBers than licensed amateurs.
As you suggest, CBers may have been able to compensate for the antenna
impedance over their limited bandwidth by using the Pi network.
Which demonstrates that some amateurs are put in the shade in technical
skill by CBers.

Once again that is a an interjection of childish venom by you; I had been
using
valve PA stages for 24 years before I picked up in 1995 a museum piece of
an FT101e

Correction ... 25 years

On 12/02/2014 09:58, Brian Reay wrote:
Kafkaësque wrote:
On 12/02/2014 00:32, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

With the onset of automatic ATUs, is the the final technical
skill that disambiguates the radio amateur from the CBer
being lost?

However, you are correct that the ATU is a dying art. I've been
zapped by the high voltages produced by antenna tuners often enough to
suspect that dying might be involved in the tuning process. If it's
not science, it must be art.

Art - most definitely. But where's the "technical skill" in adjusting a
pi network of two capacitors and one inductor?

CBers may not need to worry about ATUs, but many are quite capable of
using the pi networks on the PAs of their valved rigs which have been
re-crystalled for 6.5 and/or 27 MHz.

If memory serves, the legendary FT101 even included 27MHz coverage. It was
certainly reported to be used by more CBers than licensed amateurs.

Just to add, I wasn't condoning the use of such radios on 6.5 or 27MHz.
However, there's no point in denying that it happened.

On 12/02/14 11:36, Kafkaësque wrote:
On 12/02/2014 09:58, Brian Reay wrote:
Kafkaësque wrote:
On 12/02/2014 00:32, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

With the onset of automatic ATUs, is the the final technical
skill that disambiguates the radio amateur from the CBer
being lost?

However, you are correct that the ATU is a dying art. I've been
zapped by the high voltages produced by antenna tuners often enough to
suspect that dying might be involved in the tuning process. If it's
not science, it must be art.

Art - most definitely. But where's the "technical skill" in adjusting a
pi network of two capacitors and one inductor?

CBers may not need to worry about ATUs, but many are quite capable of
using the pi networks on the PAs of their valved rigs which have been
re-crystalled for 6.5 and/or 27 MHz.

If memory serves, the legendary FT101 even included 27MHz coverage. It
was
certainly reported to be used by more CBers than licensed amateurs.

Just to add, I wasn't condoning the use of such radios on 6.5 or 27MHz.
However, there's no point in denying that it happened.


Indeed. I'm not sure why Yaesu included 27MHz, perhaps it is legal
somewhere for such kit to be used on 27MHz.

As for 6.5MHz, I thought that was, originally at least, mainly ex
military kit.

I see the usual suspects have started to ruin the thread, as they always do.