On Wed, 19 Feb 2014, AndyW wrote:

On 18/02/2014 10:58, gareth wrote:
There was a time, back inthe 1920s and 1930s, that any active device
(valves in them thar days, tubes for the leftpondians) would cost nearly
a week's wages for the average working man, and so it was good economical
sense to try and use it as many ways as possible simultaneously.

Times have changes, and active devices with performance into the tens
of MegaHertz are now ten-a-penny, so what is achieved by competitions
such as the "Two Transistor Challenge" where it is the costs of switching
(manual, relays) which would be the major outlay?

Not carping, just curious.

There is something challenging about restricting your resources.
My most memorable receiver I ever built was made from a toilet roll tube,
wire, a crystal earpiece, tinfoil and paper hand-rolled capacitor and some
galena crystal as a detector.
I think I got more satisfaction out of that that I ever did from a digitally
programmable oscillator based beast.

I think that's something that may be lost.

People lament that in this day and age, it's difficult to attract the
young to the hobby, because how can it compete with the Internet?

And you don't compete with it, you show off things that are unique.

A simple project for a beginner is identical to what it was forty or fifty
years ago, a first project and when it actually gets working, what an
accomplishment. It's not because the simple project is comparable with the
electronic wonders of the 21st century, it's that you built it and it
worked.

Michael