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?

"Brian Reay" wrote in message
...
Far be it from me to
suggest that the manual ATU is best suited to those with ape like arms and
brains who can reach more distant feed points.


Why must you always introduce an element of childish and venomous abuse?

"Brian Reay" wrote in message
...

Each to his own in the balance between operating vs building etc., after
all it seems some who support the latter over the former never finish
projects.

Another post ... another snide comment

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 Tuesday, February 11, 2014 2:12:14 PM UTC-6, 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've never seen a case where the use of an automatic antenna tuner
drained antenna related knowledge from the operators brain pan.

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.

"Jeff Liebermann" wrote in message
...
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?


It is not a question of baiting, but of a serious concern, that amateur
radio / ham radio
is a technical pursuit and is slowly frittering away such that many radio
amateurs are
indistinguishable from CBers.

From an interest in my teenage years, it was that technical momentum that
led me to
a career in electronics and subsequently software engineering. Amateur radio
has technical privileges that may be legislated out of existence should the
various
misgovernments of the world perceive that there is no need for us to able to
create our own gear when so much is available off-the-shelf, and it is
off-the-shelf
operating that is the mark of the CBer.