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#1
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Whaddya think folks?
Ham radio's golden age was the 1950s & early 1960s. It has
been in a steady decline ever since. The ARRL & the FCC have facilitated the decline, for different reasons. If you practiced har radio in the 50s-early 60s, then you know what I am saying is correct. OM Your correct |
#2
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#4
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"OM" wrote:
Ham radio's golden age was the 1950s & early 1960s. It has been in a steady decline ever since. The ARRL & the FCC have facilitated the decline, for different reasons. If you practiced har radio in the 50s-early 60s, then you know what I am saying is correct. What a bunch of depressing malcontents in this newsgroup. I just read through this newsgroup and if someone isn't crying about the code test, someone else is crying about the written tests. Thrown into all this is endless gripes about ARRL and the FCC. Now, we have someone talking about the "golden" past like we can all just snap our fingers and go back to that supposedly perfect time. Ham radio is, and will always be, just what you make of it, people. If you choose to focus on the worst aspects of anything, that's all you're going to see. However, I suspect there is as many good things about ham radio today, and as many good people in ham radio today, as there was during any other time period. Regardless, this today is all we have. Either make the best of it or perhaps you should find another hobby. Dwight Stewart (W5NET) http://www.qsl.net/w5net/ |
#5
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In article et, "Dwight
Stewart" writes: Now, we have someone talking about the "golden" past like we can all just snap our fingers and go back to that supposedly perfect time. 1950s & early 1960s, huh? Well, that was a time when surplus was plentiful and cheap, Generals and Conditionals had full privileges, homebrewing was a lot more common and there was reportedly a lot less nonsense on the bands. Anti-antenna CC&Rs were unknown and there was little competition from other electronic avocations. However, there was a dark side back then: - the new medium of television brought with it the spectre of TVI. Evn the cleanest rigs often tore up the neighbor's reception something awful, due to fundamental overload or audio rectification. Many sets back then had terrible design flaws like 21 MHz IF strips and inadequate shielding. And just try telling your irate neighbor that his new $500 marvel was not technically perfect... - Manufactured ham equipment was big, heavy, and expensive. High powered stuff even more so. Let's not even get into the vagaries of tuning up and the damage you could do if you messed up the procedure. The prices in the old mags and catalogs look cheap until you factor inflation. Many folks homebrewed or converted surplus out of sheer necessity. $1000 would buy a nice station back then, when a $5000 annual income was solidly middle class. Figure 20% of your annual gross salary today... - At the beginning of that "golden" time, "phone" usually meant "AM". (There was some SSB as early as 1933, and lots more after WW2, but AM was still king for a while). AM meant bands full of 6-8 kHz wide signals and heterodynes. AM was simple to implement but not inexpensive even at moderate power due to the modulation power needed. At end of that period, SSB had pretty much taken over HF 'phone. In between, a lot of nastiness had flowed back and forth over which mode was "better". - The only data mode hams could use was 60 wpm Baudot RTTY, using mechanical teleprinters that were far too expensive for most hams to buy new. MARS and surplus were the usual sources, and once the machine was obtained you needed to build a TU and other interface gear. - No repeaters. No personal computers. No WARC bands. No legal phone patching. No VE sessions. No true transceivers until the late '50s. No vanity calls for 99% of hams. - There were only 100,000 US hams at the beginning of that time and 250,000 at the end. And yet, hams had a lot of fun. Ham radio is, and will always be, just what you make of it, people. If you choose to focus on the worst aspects of anything, that's all you're going to see. However, I suspect there is as many good things about ham radio today, and as many good people in ham radio today, as there was during any other time period. Regardless, this today is all we have. Either make the best of it or perhaps you should find another hobby. WELL SAID! I'll add this: One of the great strengths of amateur radio is that it offers a very wide range of activities to a wide range of people. And one of the great weaknesses of amateur radio is that it offers a very wide range of activities to a wide range of people. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
#6
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In article , Mike Coslo
writes: N2EY wrote: In article et, "Dwight Stewart" writes: Now, we have someone talking about the "golden" past like we can all just snap our fingers and go back to that supposedly perfect time. 1950s & early 1960s, huh? Well, that was a time when surplus was plentiful and cheap, Generals and Conditionals had full privileges, homebrewing was a lot more common and there was reportedly a lot less nonsense on the bands. Anti-antenna CC&Rs were unknown and there was little competition from other electronic avocations. However, there was a dark side back then: How about this for a reason, Jim? I take it you mean "why some folks call it a golden age"... Many of the people complaining about how good it used to be have been hams for a long time. I've got 36 years next month. Some of the youthful enthusiasm has gone away, and now they are perhaps a little bored with it. Not me. I'm looking forward to the next 36 years. Plus the creeping crankies start to set in, and you have a ripe field for "It ain't as good as it used to be" syndrome to set in. I think *most* humans have a built-in memory mechanism that tends to remember the good things more than the bad ones. (Otherwise most women would never have a second child!) Also, we know how the past turned out, while we don't know how the future will. So there's a natural tendency to pretty up the past. That doesn't mean that all eras are the same. Maybe it really WAS a "golden age". Certainly some things in ham radio were better back then. And some things are better now. We can learn a lot from those times. The good things can be preserved and the bad things improved. Nothing is ever as good as it used to be! And never was. "The good old days weren't always good Tomorrow's not as bad as it seems" - Billy Joel "And the seasons, they go round and round And the painted ponies go up and down We're captive on the carousel of time We can't return, we can only look Behind to to where we came And go round and round and round in the Circle Game" - Joni Mitchell 73 de Jim, N2EY |
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