[Boatanchors] A Classic Example of the Homebrew Art

[Tom Osborne Sr.]

Hi Rob

Recently, I have ordered some vintage QST magazines from the 40's and 50's
and really drool over some of those projects in the magazines.  Especially
some of the simple ones from back in my novice days in '54.  First one I
built that worked was the 'Popsicle Stick' transmitter with the 6L6 final.
Then I upgraded to a Heathkit AT-1 kit.

What was so neat back then is that you could just grab your BA or WRL
catalog and order the parts  you need to build these radios.  You could get
all the stuff for a 25 watt 6L6 rig for about $15.  Now there is just no
place left to get these parts unless you want to pay an arm and a leg for
them.

Plus ARC-5's sold for about $5 for a brand new one.

Life was so much simpler back then!!  73
Tom W7WHY



On Sun, Sep 27, 2020 at 12:47 PM Rob Atkinson <ranchorobbo at gmail.com> wrote:

> That's a beautiful piece of work but remember that for QST, most of
> the time authors submitted their text and schematics, and the
> professional shop techs and machinists at ARRL built the piece of gear
> that readers saw in QST photos.  That's why all the homebrew in QST
> was always perfect looking.   It was the ham equivalent of these House
> Beautiful magazines that show these gorgeous interiors that look like
> no one has ever lived in them.
>
> When I was a new ham in high school I knew none of this and since the
> QST staff never widely admitted the article gear was built by them in
> a well equipped machine shop, that meant that for me, homebrew was
> this impossibly high bar as I naively thought ALL those projects were
> built by the authors, therefore all ham homebrew looked perfect and if
> you were going to build something and you couldn't turn out a
> perfectly laid out and punched chassis and front panel, then forget
> about it.
>
> It wasn't until years later as an adult that I started throwing parts
> together and getting stuff to work and the hell with how it looks.
>
> I  wonder how many hams never tried to build anything because they
> never thought they could achieve the QST build quality.
>
> 73
>
> Rob
> K5UJ
>
>
>