Listening to the bands, it is sometimes hard to
imagine that there are still hams who operate with a budget of less than
$3000, and still manage to have fun doing so.
---------------------------------------------------

You're joking, right? I think if you took a survey of 25 or so hams here (or
in most other ham venues for that matter), you'd have a very difficult time
finding even a few who have anything close to $3,000 invested in their
hobby. Pile on me if I'm wrong guys, but pile on if I'm right too.

Joe
W3JDR



"Mark VandeWettering" wrote in message
. org...
On 2007-10-29, Scott wrote:
Part of the reason might be that building piece by piece is getting
pretty expensive for what you end up with. For $700 or so, you can buy
a radio that works all the HF bands plus 6, 2 and 432 with all kinds of
features. Try homebrewing that for $700... Seems that most stuff
homebrewed these days is station accessory equipment that just makes
some task around the shack a little more convenient (I'm guilty of this
as well). I do still hombrew all of my own antennas

While I agree that $700 is quite reasonable for an all-band rig, there
actually _are_ people for whom $700 is an unreasonable investment in their
hobby. It isn't as important for them to actually operate on every band
all at once, it's more important that they find a reasonably priced entry
point into the hobby. Listening to the bands, it is sometimes hard to
imagine that there are still hams who operate with a budget of less than
$3000, and still manage to have fun doing so.

But more important is the simple fact is that I learn more by building
than by buying. If ham radio is really more than simply a glorified
Citizen's Band, we are supposed to be educating and training outselves
both to serve the public and to better our own understanding of radio and
the radio arts. I think any attempt to make experimentation of that
sort more accessible to the broad population of hams should be applauded.

Mark KF6KYI


Scott
N0EDV

geek wrote:
On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:10:27 +0000, John Tartar wrote:


The deadline for the ARRL homebrew challenge has passed and I hear that
the
ARRL received 4 entries, all NO computer radios. NONE were in the
computer
assisted category. Publication is scheduled for Feb 2008 QST


A Yahoo group was started to discuss developments.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ARRLHBC/

Some of the entrants have posting info about their entries there.


Four entries? This does not bode well for the hobby :-(

IMHO, building at least some of your own stuff should be a prerequisite
for the license.

Cheers,
__
Gregg

I'm guessing I have somewhere around $3000 invested over the 25 years in
the hobby...let me do some rough math...Kenwood 520S $300, Kenwood
690SAT $1500, Yaesu 857 $600, Astron 35A power supply $250, MFJ 1278
Multimode Controller $300, Cushcraft A50-5S $150...am I there yet?
Countless PL-259, N connectors, LMR400 coax, etc. BUT, I certainly know
anyone can get by with a lot less investment. The key is investment
over time. If I take my $3000 over 25 years, it only averages
$120/year...pretty cheap for a hobby. I fly as another hobby and I can
tell you that it costs more than $120 a year!

Scott
N0EDV

W3JDR wrote:
Listening to the bands, it is sometimes hard to
imagine that there are still hams who operate with a budget of less than
$3000, and still manage to have fun doing so.

---------------------------------------------------

You're joking, right? I think if you took a survey of 25 or so hams here (or
in most other ham venues for that matter), you'd have a very difficult time
finding even a few who have anything close to $3,000 invested in their
hobby. Pile on me if I'm wrong guys, but pile on if I'm right too.

Joe
W3JDR



"Mark VandeWettering" wrote in message
. org...

On 2007-10-29, Scott wrote:

Part of the reason might be that building piece by piece is getting
pretty expensive for what you end up with. For $700 or so, you can buy
a radio that works all the HF bands plus 6, 2 and 432 with all kinds of
features. Try homebrewing that for $700... Seems that most stuff
homebrewed these days is station accessory equipment that just makes
some task around the shack a little more convenient (I'm guilty of this
as well). I do still hombrew all of my own antennas

While I agree that $700 is quite reasonable for an all-band rig, there
actually _are_ people for whom $700 is an unreasonable investment in their
hobby. It isn't as important for them to actually operate on every band
all at once, it's more important that they find a reasonably priced entry
point into the hobby. Listening to the bands, it is sometimes hard to
imagine that there are still hams who operate with a budget of less than
$3000, and still manage to have fun doing so.

But more important is the simple fact is that I learn more by building
than by buying. If ham radio is really more than simply a glorified
Citizen's Band, we are supposed to be educating and training outselves
both to serve the public and to better our own understanding of radio and
the radio arts. I think any attempt to make experimentation of that
sort more accessible to the broad population of hams should be applauded.

Mark KF6KYI


Scott
N0EDV

geek wrote:

On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:10:27 +0000, John Tartar wrote:



The deadline for the ARRL homebrew challenge has passed and I hear that
the
ARRL received 4 entries, all NO computer radios. NONE were in the
computer
assisted category. Publication is scheduled for Feb 2008 QST


A Yahoo group was started to discuss developments.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ARRLHBC/

Some of the entrants have posting info about their entries there.


Four entries? This does not bode well for the hobby :-(

IMHO, building at least some of your own stuff should be a prerequisite
for the license.

Cheers,
__
Gregg





--
Scott
http://corbenflyer.tripod.com/
Gotta Fly or Gonna Die
Building RV-4 (Super Slow Build Version)

On Nov 6, 2:14 am, "W3JDR" wrote:
Listening to the bands, it is sometimes hard to
imagine that there are still hams who operate with a budget of less than
$3000, and still manage to have fun doing so.

---------------------------------------------------

You're joking, right? I think if you took a survey of 25 or so hams here (or
in most other ham venues for that matter), you'd have a very difficult time
finding even a few who have anything close to $3,000 invested in their
hobby. Pile on me if I'm wrong guys, but pile on if I'm right too.

Joe
W3JDR

That brought back a beautiful image from when I first got my license.
A couple of other teens in the same town got their licenses at the
same time. One, in particular, was on limited means. Very limited
means. I remember going over to his house and being very happy for
him that he was working all over the place on 15M CW, using a little
one-tube regen receiver, parts scrounged from somewhere. And I see no
reason you can't do the same sort of thing today, on CW at least.
Both the receiver and the transmitter can be simple and still be
effective.

Cheers,
Tom

You can easily dump $3,000 into a single, contemporary, mid-range "box". I
don't even look at the catalogs or QST any more for this stuff which is
large, at least two big knobs, severa dozen other knobs/switches, and
panadapter screen with fancy-schmantzy readout (digital send VFO freq,
receive VFO freq, bandwidth graphics, etc).

But, over the last 30 years, yes, in total I easily dumped more than $3K
into several VHF rigs, one UHF rig, several handi-talkies, a number of
solid state HF rigs, amplifiers, old retro tube gear, some antennas
(beams), rotators, SWR meters, antenna tuners....it all adds up. Easily,
quickly.

Now, a guy can --it is possible--get on the air with something like a used
TS-520 (good basic HF rig) dipole, coax, microphone, all bare minimum, for
less than $500, maybe even less (520s maybe down to $250 these days,
depending on how badly a guy wants to sell his). Me, yes, I have a 520
and an old Icom 707 (bought at a ham store for $400, and it is vintage
entry level simple broadband rig from at least 20 years ago). And, a
couple of boatanchors.


===== no change to below, included for reference and context =====

On Tue, 6 Nov 2007, W3JDR wrote:

Listening to the bands, it is sometimes hard to
imagine that there are still hams who operate with a budget of less than
$3000, and still manage to have fun doing so.
---------------------------------------------------

You're joking, right? I think if you took a survey of 25 or so hams here (or
in most other ham venues for that matter), you'd have a very difficult time
finding even a few who have anything close to $3,000 invested in their
hobby. Pile on me if I'm wrong guys, but pile on if I'm right too.

Joe
W3JDR



"Mark VandeWettering" wrote in message
. org...
On 2007-10-29, Scott wrote:
Part of the reason might be that building piece by piece is getting
pretty expensive for what you end up with. For $700 or so, you can buy
a radio that works all the HF bands plus 6, 2 and 432 with all kinds of
features. Try homebrewing that for $700... Seems that most stuff
homebrewed these days is station accessory equipment that just makes
some task around the shack a little more convenient (I'm guilty of this
as well). I do still hombrew all of my own antennas

While I agree that $700 is quite reasonable for an all-band rig, there
actually _are_ people for whom $700 is an unreasonable investment in their
hobby. It isn't as important for them to actually operate on every band
all at once, it's more important that they find a reasonably priced entry
point into the hobby. Listening to the bands, it is sometimes hard to
imagine that there are still hams who operate with a budget of less than
$3000, and still manage to have fun doing so.

But more important is the simple fact is that I learn more by building
than by buying. If ham radio is really more than simply a glorified
Citizen's Band, we are supposed to be educating and training outselves
both to serve the public and to better our own understanding of radio and
the radio arts. I think any attempt to make experimentation of that
sort more accessible to the broad population of hams should be applauded.

Mark KF6KYI


Scott
N0EDV

geek wrote:
On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:10:27 +0000, John Tartar wrote:


The deadline for the ARRL homebrew challenge has passed and I hear that
the
ARRL received 4 entries, all NO computer radios. NONE were in the
computer
assisted category. Publication is scheduled for Feb 2008 QST


A Yahoo group was started to discuss developments.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ARRLHBC/

Some of the entrants have posting info about their entries there.


Four entries? This does not bode well for the hobby :-(

IMHO, building at least some of your own stuff should be a prerequisite
for the license.

Cheers,
__
Gregg

On Oct 29, 1:42 am, geek wrote:
On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:10:27 +0000, John Tartar wrote:
The deadline for the ARRL homebrew challenge has passed and I hear that the
ARRL received 4 entries, all NO computer radios. NONE were in the computer
assisted category. Publication is scheduled for Feb 2008 QST

A Yahoo group was started to discuss developments.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ARRLHBC/

Some of the entrants have posting info about their entries there.

Four entries? This does not bode well for the hobby :-(

It's astonishing that anyone was able to meet the requirements: A $50
HF CW and voice transceiver meeting FCC spectral requirements. That's
astonishing.

I mean, 40 years ago some of were cobbling together crystal-controlled
CW transmitters for $10 or $15 plus a lot of raiding of old TV's and
radios for tubes, transformers, etc. The fact that the same inflation-
adjusted amount of money allows something that is way superior
functionally with modern stuff is good news!

IMHO, building at least some of your own stuff should be a prerequisite
for the license.

Maybe, but requiring someone to build a multimode HF transceiver from
scratch would have been even more onerous 40 years ago than it is
today. Some folks will complain about the cost of a rig (and in fact
these complaints were the impetus behind the homebrew challenge), but
with used, all-band, multimode HF rigs available for just a few
hundred dollars I don't see how cost can matter much.

There was a really funny letter that QST published over the summer,
saying "there's no way to do anything on HF without a $6000 radio and
multiple towers filled with beam arrays anymore". My response: I
turned on my old Heath HW-16 (paid $50 for it a few months before) and
worked a dozen European/Eurasian countries and Senegal without even
trying. It's like some are setting the bar way too high or way too
low, when really it's about having fun.

Tim.

Well $50 is definitely Do-Able, for a SSB/CW radio.
There's a picture of one on the front page of the yahoo group.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ARRLHBC/

The fact that the are only 4 entries is a little disappointing,
especially since none were Software Defined Radios.
However, the task is difficult, and the prize was only a token $100.
I know of a few hams who started designs but didn't finish in time.

I've looked at the Picastar group, and that's real homebrew, they want
you to iron Xerox paper onto blank PCB stock to make your SMT boards. So
it's $300 in material, and probably 300 hours of your time. But saving
money is not the normal reason for homebrewing these days. For $300 you
could buy a decent used 160-10M HF radio on EBay.

The first radio I built (in the 60's) was a simple 1 tube crystal
controlled transmitter featured in an Electronics magazine that you could
build for $7. Adjusting for inflation, $7 is about equal to $50 today.
And for $50 you get much mo a VFO, digital readout, TX&RX, CW&SSB.

I think the point of the $50 HF radio, is to attract VHF only hams to try
HF. What's the statistic? 75% of all hams never operate on HF? The new
no-code license should let these Tech class hams get a general pretty
easily.



On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:10:27 +0000, John Tartar wrote:

The deadline for the ARRL homebrew challenge has passed and I hear
that the
ARRL received 4 entries, all NO computer radios. NONE were in the
computer
assisted category. Publication is scheduled for Feb 2008 QST

It's the $50 limit! Thats way too low under $100 then it's doable.

A Yahoo group was started to discuss developments.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ARRLHBC/

Some of the entrants have posting info about their entries there.

Four entries? This does not bode well for the hobby :-(

No it may speak badly for the challenge. I've built a lot of SSB
VHF radios and $50 is a tight budget even with a large junkbox
assist.

IMHO, building at least some of your own stuff should be a prerequisite
for the license.

I do but, I am in a minority.

Allison


Tim Shoppa wrote in
s.com:

On Oct 29, 1:42 am, geek wrote:
On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:10:27 +0000, John Tartar wrote:
The deadline for the ARRL homebrew challenge has passed and I hear
that the ARRL received 4 entries, all NO computer radios. NONE
were in the computer assisted category. Publication is scheduled
for Feb 2008 QST

A Yahoo group was started to discuss developments.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ARRLHBC/

Some of the entrants have posting info about their entries there.

Four entries? This does not bode well for the hobby :-(

It's astonishing that anyone was able to meet the requirements: A $50
HF CW and voice transceiver meeting FCC spectral requirements. That's
astonishing.

I mean, 40 years ago some of were cobbling together crystal-controlled
CW transmitters for $10 or $15 plus a lot of raiding of old TV's and
radios for tubes, transformers, etc. The fact that the same inflation-
adjusted amount of money allows something that is way superior
functionally with modern stuff is good news!

IMHO, building at least some of your own stuff should be a
prerequisite for the license.

Maybe, but requiring someone to build a multimode HF transceiver from
scratch would have been even more onerous 40 years ago than it is
today. Some folks will complain about the cost of a rig (and in fact
these complaints were the impetus behind the homebrew challenge), but
with used, all-band, multimode HF rigs available for just a few
hundred dollars I don't see how cost can matter much.

There was a really funny letter that QST published over the summer,
saying "there's no way to do anything on HF without a $6000 radio and
multiple towers filled with beam arrays anymore". My response: I
turned on my old Heath HW-16 (paid $50 for it a few months before) and
worked a dozen European/Eurasian countries and Senegal without even
trying. It's like some are setting the bar way too high or way too
low, when really it's about having fun.

Tim.

On 2007-10-29, John Tartar wrote:
Well $50 is definitely Do-Able, for a SSB/CW radio.

If you were mass-producing a kit, it should be easy. The challenge (back
when I read it) made it sound like it had to be buildable with printed
instructions and $50. If you have to buy everything in single unit
quantities and make your own PCB (or build ugly/Manhattan, a challenge
that would seem more formidable than $50 to many new hams) then it's
hard to squeeze everything in. How many tinkerers have any idea how
much it would really cost to build one of their creations? They probably
built most of it from the junkbox.

--
Ben Jackson AD7GD

http://www.ben.com/

Four entries? This does not bode well for the hobby :-(

IMHO, building at least some of your own stuff should be a prerequisite
for the license.
===============================
In the UK ,in order to obtain an Intermediate Level AR licence ,a
candidate ,prior to sitting a multiple choice type of exam (test) will
have to construct a (simple) piece of amateur radio related kit.
It can be as simple as a sounder to practice Morse telegraphy or perhaps
a simple receiver or a VFO or a crystal calibrator ,etc.
Prior to the construction the candidate will be assessed on basic
soldering / de-soldering skills.

Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH

On Oct 29, 8:26 am, wrote:
On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 22:42:11 -0700, geek
wrote:

On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:10:27 +0000, John Tartar wrote:

The deadline for the ARRL homebrew challenge has passed and I hear that the
ARRL received 4 entries, all NO computer radios. NONE were in the computer
assisted category. Publication is scheduled for Feb 2008 QST

It's the $50 limit! Thats way too low under $100 then it's doable.

A Yahoo group was started to discuss developments.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ARRLHBC/

Some of the entrants have posting info about their entries there.

Four entries? This does not bode well for the hobby :-(

No it may speak badly for the challenge. I've built a lot of SSB
VHF radios and $50 is a tight budget even with a large junkbox
assist.

IMHO one of the basic premises of the challenge - that the lack of sub-
$50 radios is limiting access to the hobby - is the problem. After the
designs are published and we don't see a huge influx of new hams, I
think we'll finally be able to abolish the thought that sub-$50 radios
aren't the silver bullet and move on to facing the real challenges
instead of stupid lines in the sand.

That said, I really look forward to the clever things done to make a
multimode HF transceiver for just $50.

Tim.

Tim Shoppa wrote:

SNIP

IMHO one of the basic premises of the challenge - that the lack of sub-
$50 radios is limiting access to the hobby - is the problem. After the
designs are published and we don't see a huge influx of new hams, I
think we'll finally be able to abolish the thought that sub-$50 radios
aren't the silver bullet and move on to facing the real challenges
instead of stupid lines in the sand.

That said, I really look forward to the clever things done to make a
multimode HF transceiver for just $50.

Tim.

How about the BITX20? That can made for $50 surely.
http://www.phonestack.com/farhan/bitx.html



Charlie.

--
M0WYM
www.radiowymsey.org