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Quantity Over Quality (Was: Unwritten policy and the intent of the average amateur ...)
On 30 Jan 2007 02:14:40 -0800, wrote:
On Jan 29, 1:02?pm, Bob Brock wrote: On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:52:16 -0500, "KH6HZ" wrote: "Bob Brock" writes: The economy of scale situation in ham radio today is mail order/ internet sales, plus hamfest/conventions. because they're the most competitive for most things. Some manufacturers sell don't sell through dealers at all - Ten Tec and Elecraft are two examples. Don't confuse lack of customers with economy of scale. Those little guys can't compete with the big boys any better than the local shops can compete with Wal-Mart. True enough. But, in contrast, my wife could have bought her iRobot set from Sears. [Sears began in Chicago, too...:-) ] But, iRobot sold a package of Roomba and Scooba DIRECT for slightly less than what Sears was charging. Note: The iRobot products owe their workability to solid-state ELECTRONICS, especially microprocessors. Modern-day HF transceivers owe their workability to solid-state ELECTRONICS, especially microprocessors. Wal-Mart, Target, K-Mart, Sears, J.C.Penney all sell direct through the Internet. Nobody (except John Smith I) seems to recognize the truly HUGE market revolution brought on by the Internet. Amazon.com did...[push, push] I see that, in certain instances, you do understand economy of scale. Why you reject other identical instances is a mystery to me. We shall now pause while Cranky thinks up a proper rationalization of how he is "always correct"... :-) How many of us first became aware of the existence of local amateurs by seeing their antennas? I wouldn't know since that doesn't apply to me. I became interested in ham radio and SWL when I met the guy who came out to replace some tubes in my Grandfather's TV. Back then most commercial radio was AM and you could listen to stations from all over late at night on a regular radio. The guy gave me a used short wave radio and I've been hooked ever since. My first "interest" in radio was as a young teen-ager building and flying model aircraft. I read about "radio control" of them and thought that would be neat. One of the adult model flyers in the club was a pre-WW2 amateur as well as a pro licensee in radio working for the CAA. [was so long ago that it wouldn't be NASA for a while and 'NOAA' didn't exist then...:-) ] My $98 (retail) National NC-57 receiver was bought via a $100 prize earned in competitive free-flight model flying in Detroit, MI, in 1948. Still have the trophy but the NC-57 has aged more than me...:-) Everyone has a different episode of first-discovery but it is proclaimed that only 'certain kinds' of discovery are the 'only right-and-proper' ones. Ptui. That was a long time ago though and the new generations have different motivators. I think that one of the biggest [de]motivators is the stigma of current CB operations and that a lot of people don't recognize the difference between the two. There I agree totally. "CB" came into being in 1958. I was then a calibration technician at the Ramo- Wooldridge Corporation Standards Lab in El Segundo, CA. The lab supervisor was Ed Dodds (not sure of his call- sign but could have been W6AFU or close to it, anyway he was a pre-WW2 amateur and had a full Collins station). Ed didn't think much of this "11-meter Charley Brown" thing but he didn't despise it either. A lot of the other olde-tymers at RW denounced it all over the place. "HOW DARE THE FCC TAKE AWAY *OUR* 11-METER BAND?" "HOW DARE THE FCC LET CIVILIANS ON HF RADIO WITHOUT A CODE TEST or even a license test?!?" Blah, blah, blah, etc. Oh, such a terrible thing!!! That was, as I see it a time of the birthing of bigotry against CB that remains in the later-generation amateur community. No sweat to me. I put a Viking Messenger CB in my aluminum-body '53 Austin-Healey in 1959 and had a lot of fun with it. A lot of folks around here in LA did similar, mobile or fixed. Fabulous "ground plane" for a base-loaded short whip. Wasn't interested in "DX." I liked the mobile communications thing, to be able to talk to PEOPLE, not stations or callsigns. That was the original intent of "CB," not the olde- tyme hammature activity of "work DX on HF with CW." Forty-nine years later the CB users outnumber hams by at least six to one [I think the EIA quit trying to take a measure of the number years ago]. It's a standard item in the cab for highway truckers now. I look to the right of my computer and see one of the pair of Motorola FRS-GMRS handy-talkies that was purchased at Fry's Electronics for less than $50 the pair. My wife and I use it in and around the house. I can close my hand around it. Rechargeable NiMH batteries, AC dual charger part of the sales pack. According to the 2003 FCC Panel on Unlicensed Radio there were 15 million FRS radios sold back then. I don't use "CB" mobile now, haven't since 1981. A cell phone works just dandy for us on highways now on one- and two-thousand mile drives cross- country in the USA. But, according to the morse mavens still flapping their worn wings prior to 15 Dec 06, I could ONLY be LEGALLY and MORALLY "CORRECT" by passing a morse code test for an amateur radio license!!! :-) Regards, LA PS: The new Mouser Feb-Apr 2007 catalog 629 arrived in today's (30 Jan 07) mail. 1,838 pages. 2 3/16" thick at the spine. Good to know they are still "discovering themselves." :-) |
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