"John Smith" wrote in message
...
I have watched a hundred intellectuals fail where one brave man succeeds...

Yeah, but for every brave man's successs, there are thousands of failures too.
:-)

Einstein said, to the effect--genius is 1% inspiration and 99%
perspiration...

I think that was Edison? Einstein said something like, "Creativity is more
important than knowledge," which unfortunately a lot of people seem to want to
interpret as "Hence, knowledge is unimportant," which is not at all what he
meant.

In the end, such a radio is not only desirable, it is exactly what is
needed... no argument will change that...

Well John, there's nothing stopping you from desgining and building the thing.
Even in the post-Internet boom era here, though, you'll probably have a much
easier time finding venture capital from a bunch of businessmen than from a
bunch of engineers.

I do think it's true that, in various areas, amateur radio now plays
technological "catch up" to commercial technologies. IMO, this is a
reflection of the fact that (unlike 40 years ago) designing a "modern radio"
(such as a cell phone) costs literally tens to hundreds of millions of dollars
and hundreds of man years. There's just no way companies like Icom, Yaesu,
etc. can invest that sort of effort when you look at the sales volumes of
their radios (and the fact that -- unlike cell phones -- amateur radio usage
doesn't provide them with any revenue!). A lot of the most interesting
advancements in amateur radio in the past couple of decades have come from the
likes of Doug DeMaw, Bob Larkin, Rick Campbell, Roy Lewallen, Wes Hayward,
etc. -- all of whom, insofar as I'm aware, spent some of their professional
lives performing RF design for well-funded companies. I don't think that's a
coincidence.

---Joel