[Cliff Sojourner]

Hello Michael,



But why is that? Many kids aren't creative these days. They hang out in
front of the TV or some video game but don't actually build stuff.
Places like Radio Shack as we knew it from the old days can only survive
when people built stuff.

same could be said of most hams!! I bought an HT recently and I was
astounded to learn HRO did NOT stock SMA connectors (needed for the HT),
or RG174.

Hams pay $30 to $60 for coax with BNCs at each end. Hams pay $30 for
12VDC 200mA wall warts! Hams pay $15 to $30 for serial cables.

do hams actually BUILD anything these days?

The Radio Shack here in town has closed. It become a cell phone store.
Sigh.

yeah.

 

[CLFE]

same could be said of most hams!! I bought an HT recently and I was
astounded to learn HRO did NOT stock SMA connectors (needed for the HT),
or RG174.

Hams pay $30 to $60 for coax with BNCs at each end. Hams pay $30 for
12VDC 200mA wall warts! Hams pay $15 to $30 for serial cables.

do hams actually BUILD anything these days?


yeah.

I do, if I find something worth the effort. It is fun....... I don't mind
building, including making my own PCs, but it has to be something which I
can use - not just throw in a drawer once done - never to see daylight -
again. I've built some pieces of test equipment which saved me a lot of
aggrivation and time - once completed. Heck, I wish I could do a project a
week - just to do it.

CLF

 

[Joel Kolstad]

Cliff,

Hams pay $30 to $60 for coax with BNCs at each end. Hams pay $30 for
12VDC 200mA wall warts! Hams pay $15 to $30 for serial cables.

So what? Although I understand your point here -- you'd like people to
build their own equipment and learn a few skills -- I would sure hope that
anyone who's been messing around with electronics since a kid has terminated
hundreds or thousands of cables, built plenty of cheesy wall-wart-like power
supplies, and wired plenty of their own cables. If they're smart, they've
advanced their skills well beyond the point and now have good paying jobs
and buying those pre-manufactured items is arguably a much better use of
their time than making them.

It just doesn't make sense to build your own power supplies when you can buy
something like a 5V, 1A switcher with 100-240V input for <$10... time is the
ultimate commodity than you can never create more of!

do hams actually BUILD anything these days?

Sure... look at something like GNU Radio, the Elecraft kits, the TAPR VNA
kit, etc.

Being able to build something from a schematic prepares you for a job that
pays little better than flipping burgers.

This is very much like mowing your lawn -- if you can afford to pay soomeone
else to do it, there's little point in doing it yourself unless you truly
enjoy and experience and understand the "opportunity cost" (the time you
won't be able to spend doing other things you might enjoy more) involved.

 

[ehsjr]

Cliff,




So what? Although I understand your point here -- you'd like people to
build their own equipment and learn a few skills -- I would sure hope that
anyone who's been messing around with electronics since a kid has terminated
hundreds or thousands of cables, built plenty of cheesy wall-wart-like power
supplies, and wired plenty of their own cables. If they're smart, they've
advanced their skills well beyond the point and now have good paying jobs
and buying those pre-manufactured items is arguably a much better use of
their time than making them.

It just doesn't make sense to build your own power supplies when you can buy
something like a 5V, 1A switcher with 100-240V input for <$10... time is the
ultimate commodity than you can never create more of!




Sure... look at something like GNU Radio, the Elecraft kits, the TAPR VNA
kit, etc.

Being able to build something from a schematic prepares you for a job that
pays little better than flipping burgers.

This is very much like mowing your lawn -- if you can afford to pay soomeone
else to do it, there's little point in doing it yourself unless you truly
enjoy and experience and understand the "opportunity cost" (the time you
won't be able to spend doing other things you might enjoy more) involved.

Yabut - another ham and I were discussing the design of a
phase discriminator. Mention Foster-Seely to any of the
other hams listening and they thought it was a mattress.
One of them didn't know how to solder a resistor to a
PC board ... afaik the others didn't even try. Let me
put it this way - some hams' time would be better spent
opening a book or melting solder than buying a wall wart.

Ed

 

[CLFE]

Yabut - another ham and I were discussing the design of a
phase discriminator. Mention Foster-Seely to any of the
other hams listening and they thought it was a mattress.
One of them didn't know how to solder a resistor to a
PC board ... afaik the others didn't even try. Let me
put it this way - some hams' time would be better spent
opening a book or melting solder than buying a wall wart.

Ed

Maybe the economy and so on - isn't what it once was - BUT - those who knock
"knowing" electronics would be up a creek - were it not for those of us who
DO. Those gadgets don't make themselves.

You're right about the Foster Seeley..... Hell, I've seen "hams" - using the
term lightly as we're not all on the same platform - not even know what a
"fuse" was!
OR a ground! Eh....... seems to me they should have failed. But - that is my
beef with the newer tests. You get all the answers given to you in a book.
Years ago, you really didn't know what to expect when you went in front of
the FCC. If you didn't know electronics, you were just wasting your time.
My - how times have changed.

CLF

 

[Ignoramus22991]

I have to wonder what is the point of being a ham in the day and age
of the internet.

i

 

[CLFE]

I have to wonder what is the point of being a ham in the day and age
of the internet.

i

I'm not so sure being a "ham" was the point. However, that is how many of
the current technicians/engineers (myself included) cut their teeth. IF it
weren't for people getting involved in electronics, those who can't seem to
understand the desire - would have no computers, no TV, no Stereo, no
anything. SOMEONE had to "design" these items and test them for them to be
able to be marketed. You just don't do that without "knowledge". Parts can
be soldered on by machine if need be - BUT - they had to be designed and
tested to get there. These kids wouldn't have their Gameboys, cell phones
and so on - if "someone" didn't take the initiative to design and create.
Maybe the phones are made in China, so be it - who do you think installs the
cell sites? Not chinese. SOMEONE has to know what to do. THERE IS - need for
people to become interested in electronics. Give that up and the rest - and
yes we will truly become slaves to those who would love to destroy us. It is
too easy to sit back and do nothing.

CLF

 

[Don Bowey]

I have to wonder what is the point of being a ham in the day and age
of the internet.

i

Talking to someone via ham radio means you are talking with someone with
developed skills with which you have something in common. There is a
kinship that is comfortable. Also, it's great fun to use low power and make
contact all over the planet.

There is nothing similar to ham radio, in the internet.

Don

 

[[email protected]]

same could be said of most hams!! I bought an HT recently and I was
astounded to learn HRO did NOT stock SMA connectors (needed for the HT),
or RG174.

Hams pay $30 to $60 for coax with BNCs at each end. Hams pay $30 for
12VDC 200mA wall warts! Hams pay $15 to $30 for serial cables.

Just so you know, Goodwill (and other thrift shops) sell those wall
warts for $1 apiece.

 

[Ignoramus22991]

Talking to someone via ham radio means you are talking with someone with
developed skills with which you have something in common. There is a
kinship that is comfortable. Also, it's great fun to use low power and make
contact all over the planet.

you could do the same thing over a computer. Connect to people sharing
your interests, using low power, worldwide.

There is nothing similar to ham radio, in the internet.

Perhaps, but I am not sure what it is exactly.

i

 

[Joerg]

Hello Joel,

Sure... look at something like GNU Radio, the Elecraft kits, the TAPR VNA
kit, etc.

Being able to build something from a schematic prepares you for a job that
pays little better than flipping burgers.

Not quite. As a kid I learned a whole lot from making other folk's
Heathkit projects work. Sending them in to Heathkit would have been the
ultimate embarrassment for them so they'd rather have someone local do
it. Schematic sez it should work but it ain't, so ... lessee.

That taught me a good dose of diagnostics and showed me lots of ways how
they designed stuff. You learn from examples and then go on to doing it
from scratch.

This is very much like mowing your lawn -- if you can afford to pay soomeone
else to do it, there's little point in doing it yourself unless you truly
enjoy and experience and understand the "opportunity cost" (the time you
won't be able to spend doing other things you might enjoy more) involved.

Lawn, yeah. Other stuff? Not quite. I am just doing a plumbing/framing
project because a broken fixture in a bath turned out to reveal huge
shortcomings in what the "professionals" did. I am not going to let that
happen again. BTW, they'd esily charge a couple thousand plus material.
Probably doing it myself will in the end equate to a fat three digit
hour rate.

Regards, Joerg

 

[mc]

Talking to someone via ham radio means you are talking with someone with

developed skills with which you have something in common. There is a
kinship that is comfortable. Also, it's great fun to use low power and
make
contact all over the planet.

There is nothing similar to ham radio, in the internet.

In particular, with ham radio, you don't need an ISP or a telephone line.
You can talk to the other side of the world with no equipment except what is
owned (and could even have been built) by the people on the two ends.

For emergency communication, ham radio is indispensable. Also, I think
shortwave technology should be kept alive in the interest of freedom. A
tyrant can take his country off the Internet but can't block all incoming
radio signals.

VY 73
N4TMI

 

[Sjouke Burry]

Talking to someone via ham radio means you are talking with someone with
developed skills with which you have something in common. There is a
kinship that is comfortable. Also, it's great fun to use low power and make
contact all over the planet.

There is nothing similar to ham radio, in the internet.

Don

Have you listened to the ham bands lately?
There is a deadly silence there most of the time.
I wonder how fast the ham population is
disappearing.....

 

[[email protected]]

In particular, with ham radio, you don't need an ISP or a telephone line.
You can talk to the other side of the world with no equipment except what is
owned (and could even have been built) by the people on the two ends.

For emergency communication, ham radio is indispensable. Also, I think
shortwave technology should be kept alive in the interest of freedom. A
tyrant can take his country off the Internet but can't block all incoming
radio signals.

VY 73
N4TMI

Say, doesn't Linux have some provision for using the ham radio bands
for telecommunication? Anyone have any experience with this?

 

[mc]

Say, doesn't Linux have some provision for using the ham radio bands
for telecommunication? Anyone have any experience with this?

All operating systems do. There's not much to it. What you need is
essentially a packet radio modem, and from there, TCP/IP over the air is not
hard to do.

You can't mix ham radio with the Internet because of the strict laws against
commercial traffic on ham radio. But apart from that, it's a good thing,
and very useful in emergencies.

I don't do packet radio myself because it's too much like my day job, but
it's certainly a popular part of ham radio.

 

[Ignoramus22991]

In particular, with ham radio, you don't need an ISP or a telephone line.
You can talk to the other side of the world with no equipment except what is
owned (and could even have been built) by the people on the two ends.

There is also Linux based IP-over-radio project, I am not sure how far
it went.

For emergency communication, ham radio is indispensable. Also, I think
shortwave technology should be kept alive in the interest of freedom. A
tyrant can take his country off the Internet but can't block all incoming
radio signals.

VY 73
N4TMI

--

 

[Joerg]

Talking to someone via ham radio means you are talking with someone with

you could do the same thing over a computer. Connect to people sharing
your interests, using low power, worldwide.

And then, poof, there is a widespread power outage and all your 'modern'
communication is toast. Web, cell phones, everything but radio. Even the
POTS network will become spotty if the outage goes on for too long.
Generators are fine but they won't help when the snow pack is so huge
that a 4WD won't get you there to refuel. AFAIK the record for our area
stand at around 10 days. That makes people realize the true value of
some basic technologies. Now where was that bag of charcoal? Where can
we get some firewood that isn't wet? And where are those batteries?

Regards, Joerg

 

[John Perry]

And then, poof, there is a widespread power outage and all your 'modern'
communication is toast. Web, cell phones, everything but radio. Even the
POTS network will become spotty if the outage goes on for too long.

As Katrina just showed. OUr local newspaper just had a nice spread
about hams being the only means of communication into and out of La. and
Mississippi for a while after the landfall.

John Perry

 

[mc]

And then, poof, there is a widespread power outage and all your 'modern'

As Katrina just showed. OUr local newspaper just had a nice spread about
hams being the only means of communication into and out of La. and
Mississippi for a while after the landfall.

Exactly. Almost all ham gear these days runs on 12 volts DC, so anywhere
you have a running car, you can power it. Much of it is low-power and will
run for a very long time on a car battery.

 

[Ignoramus22991]

And then, poof, there is a widespread power outage and all your 'modern'
communication is toast. Web, cell phones, everything but radio. Even the
POTS network will become spotty if the outage goes on for too long.
Generators are fine but they won't help when the snow pack is so huge
that a 4WD won't get you there to refuel. AFAIK the record for our area
stand at around 10 days. That makes people realize the true value of
some basic technologies. Now where was that bag of charcoal? Where can
we get some firewood that isn't wet? And where are those batteries?

While you surely have a point, about a very remote possibility for any
given locale, I actually have enough diesel fuel to last for a month of
conservative use in winter, more for summer. I have a 26 year old Onan
diesel generator that I restored.

i