[HBR] Cost Of Homebrewing?

[hbr@mailman.qth.net]

In a message dated 10/7/03 2:13:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
waltah@earthlink.net writes:


> I should have waited until Jim responded to this post and then I could 
> just have said "Me too!"

Glad to know I'm in good company!


> 
> However I want to expand on one point:
> 
> > ... homebrewing became a niche activity. And there's a regenerative
> > effect - fewer hams building meant fewer parts houses stocking stuff
> > to build with. 
> 
> A national organization -- the ARRL or RSGB -- must of course 
> reflect the interests of its members.   However one expects its 
> management to have a view of where those interests lie and to 
> actively promote developments favoring those interests.  

Agreed. 


> 
> It has been clear for at least thirty years that the most visible and 
> immediate public policy justifications for the existance of ham radio 
> are pinching out, as radio communication has steadily been de-
> skilled.   A sheriff's deputy with a handheld or a teenage girl with a 
> cell phone can now provide emergency communications ... right?


As proven time and time again - not in all cases. Particularly unusual ones.

For example, hams helped look for pieces of the space shuttle after the 
reentry failure. The search teams without hams had lots of trouble with comms even 
though they had cellphones because:

- there was no way to address multiple groups with one call
- the coverage was unreliable
- the cell phone wound up forgotten in someone's coat pocket or pack
- often the ting could not be heard.

Etc.


So we do need skilled ops - but that's just a part of ham radio, not the 
whole thing. 

And part of being a skilled op is knowing how to get radios to work. 



>     
> What remains if we don't seem to need skilled operators is the 
> development of a pool of hands-on experienced technical talent -- 
> people who know 'how it works,' can make things work even in 
> adverse conditions, and so on.  Appliance operator hams with some 
> traffic net experience have much to offer, no doubt, but the ham who 
> can imagine a dozen ways to use even an unfamiliar pile of junk to 
> gain long-distance communication, has a critical place in the picture.


Agreed - but some would argue that the key to emergency preparedness is to 
have everyhting you need and then some *before* it's needed, not to cobble 
something together during an emergency. 

However, there's still a case to be made for actually knowing how radios 
work.

> 
> Second to that, in a computer aided world there's day to day value in 
> having people who have taken *any* technical hardware product from 
> inception to use.   If you pick out the knob, locate the knob on the 
> panel, make the holes for the knob, correct the misalignment and 
> worry about interfering parts, and finally twist the knob a few 
> thousand times as part of your hobby, you know things that can't be 
> learned from a CAD program -- things that have a value to society.

Sure. But at the same time, folks are going to do what interests them.


> 
> If there's an awareness of any of this in Newington, it has been kept 
> close.   Our Radio Amateur's Handbook -- which ought to be a  
> beacon of technical interest and activity -- has been coasting now for 
> forty years, its vision having evaporated about the time VHF got 
> going.   The price is too steep ($40, right?), the material foolishly over-
> technical, and frankly the thing is borrrr-ing.   It serves no valid ham 
> radio purpose and except that it makes money, should have been 
> discontinued twenty years ago.


I disagree! While it needs work, there's still a place for the Handbook.

However, let's look at the ARRL vs. RSGB Handbooks of the 60s. Some 
interesting comparisons.

> 
> The 1948 handbook fired my imagination when (as a 9 year old) I 
> found it on the shelves of a public library.   This was stuff I could *do* 
> -- stuff I could connect with, *interesting* stuff.   If a 9 year old today 
> could lift the current book (and if the library had a copy) what he find 
> that was of interest?

Good question! But the ham radio of today is not like the ham radio of 1948. 

Oddly enough, I got my start by discovering a 1949 Handbook in the family 
library. Somebody had loaned it to dad and didn't want it back. I still have it. 

That was about 1965, when I was 11, and I was not too aware of how much radio 
had changed in 16 years....


> 
> A total loss of direction, a systematic lack of concern for the purpose 
> ... our handbook has indeed been coasting.   The projects stink 
> because there's been an ongoing lack of interest in good projects.   
> The ARRL lab seems to have been handed over to earnest 
> youngsters with zilch experience and a budget of up to $500/year for 
> all projects.  (And BTW, don't say anything negative about advertiser 
> products.)

I've been to that lab, and all I can say is they have some really good folks. 
But the focus is completely different than wat you or I would want.




> 
> But the *handbook* is a symptom, not the disease.   The disease is 
> the lack of recognition within our only powerful organization that *skill 
> matters*, that promoting skill (from homebrewing to CW to traffic 
> handling, emergency preparedness ...) is one of the two or three 
> most important things the ARRL should be doing, and that 
> encouraging skill-building deserves serious effort.   Yes, even 
> increasing the number of licensees and bringing in more young 
> people is less important than the development of skill within the ham 
> community.  And homebrewing is one of the small number of critical 
> skills.
> 

Agreed - but the problem is that the last time there was a concerted effort 
to 'sell' that idea, the result was incentive licensing. Which was an FCC idea 
that ARRL bought into when it became clear that FCC wasn't gonna take no for 
an answer. 

Some folks are still mad about that. 


> How long has it been since you've heard an on-the-air technical 
> discussion that went beyond: (1) How this mic sounds with this  
> transceiver; (2) How this dipole is getting out; or, (3) How this linear 
> amp sounds/is getting out?   

Last time I had a QSO, actually. 

I was running the Type 7 and I worked a ham in MS running a 3 watt homebrew 
transmitter-receiver. 40 CW, I answered his CQ. Great QSO - told me about his 
rig and I told him about mine. All-hollow-state on my end, all-solid-state on 
his end. 100% homebrew both ends. Gotta luv it.

We have all kinds of contests and 
> 
> awards for 'DX' -- have you listened to a 'century club' net lately, as 
> they 'hone their skills'? 

Nope.


> 
> Our handbook had 'no surplus' and 'no sweep tube amp' policies for 
> years.   How could it have been allowed to have policies that 
> discouraged hams from *building stuff*?

Was there really such a policy? They avoided surplus, yes, but I always 
thought that was because there was a conscious decision not to get into surplus 
conversion because others had done lots of books on the subject.

The first edition of "Understanding Amateur Radio" carried the excellent 
W1ICP series on BC-454/455 conversion and converters for same

> 
> The RSGB handbooks are better and more interesting because  the 
> RSGB and the authors think they ought to be interesting.   The 
> projects are better than ours because they believe that good projects 
> matter.   Ask yourself this:  with W6TC's excellent work all over QST, 
> why didn't it make to our handbook?   

Because it was all over QST already.


Why was it not *improved* in 
> 
> the ARRL lab and published in the handbook?  

That's what the DCS-500 was. 

Why not a  
> 
> modular/progressive version of the receiver?   Why is the best 
> homebrew receiver ever designed found in an RSGB publication and 
> nothing even close in our own?   Maybe Americans are too dumb?   
> Bull ... baloney.  G2DAF's design could have been simplified *and* 
> improved -- why was that not done and published in our book?  Why 
> not a matching transmitter? 

Why not a transceiver?

 Why not sponsored homebrew 
> 
> activities?  Why not contests and awards for the construction and 
> operation of homebrew equipment?   

Because by the mid-1950s, much of US hamdom was already "appliance 
operating." Or building kits. The same was not true in the UK, due to exchange rates and 
import duties as well as a generally lower income level. 

Actually, it's even more complex. Here's what I think happened:

First off, the goals of the two books were different. The ARRL Handbook, 
particularly after about 1962 or so, was meant more as a general reference book 
than as a true project book. The projects shown were meant to decribe general 
ideas and suggest approaches rather than be duplicated down to the last nut and 
bolt. ARRL put out a whole series of books, such as the Mobile Manual, 
Sideband Manual, VHF Manual, Antenna Book, etc., very early on, so the Handbook was 
really not intended to be the last word. 

RSGB did the opposite, stuffing everything they could into their Handbooks. 
At least as far as the 4th edition that I have, their Handbook was meant to be 
as comprehensive as possible. The projects are intended for exact duplication.

The two books were written differently, too. ARRL came out with a new 
Handbook every year, so it had to have a certain amount of new stuff in it each year. 
Which tends to be a disincentive for really involved projects. RSGB put out 
their first edition in 1938 (12 years after the first ARRL book), the second 
edition in 1940, the third edition in 1961, and the fourth edition in 1968. Even 
if we consider the effect of WW2, it was 15+ years from the end of WW2 to the 
third edition! Then seven more years to the fourth edition! Indeed, more than 
15 years elapsed between the last printing of the second edition and the 
first printing of the third edition, and more than 5 years between the last 
printing of the third edition and the first printing of the fourth.

In retrospect, the *best* approach would probably have been to put out a new 
book every 4 years or so. But ARRL stuck to the "every year" approach. 

The ARRL book was meant (at least in those days) to sell for a very low 
price. My 1967 edition was $4. My 4th edition RSGB is marked "63/-" which I take to 
be 63 shillings, or 3 pounds 3 shillings. That's about $7.50 back then, given 
the exchange rate of the time. But given the economic conditions in the UK in 
the '60s, it was probably more like $25 to the average G. 

The RSGB book is also bigger - by almost 200 pages! RSGB includes almost 
nothing of history, no big tube or transistor ratings section, and no chapter on 
construction practices. And despite all the great construction articles, no 
projects for antenna tuners! 

The ARRL Handbook was mostly the work of By Goodman, W1DX, in his time there. 
The RSGB book has a whole page (34 names plus editors and draughtsmen) of 
authors! Someone like G2DAF could spend years developing a project, without 
having to do much else on the book. Same for the other authors. 

But ARRL didn't exactly work that way. Some of the articles in the ARRL book 
are the work of others (they are credited as such in the photos) and some were 
in QST first. But many, like the HB-67, appeared only in the Handbook and 
only for a year or two. 

I remember an explanation somewhere in QST that "QST is for the new and 
novel, the Handbook for the tried-and-true" and in general that's the case. I think 
the idea of the Handbook was to suggest ideas rather than show the entire 
path. 

Both books also had the paradigm of "current technology", meaning they did 
not use parts or methods more than a few years old at the time of publication. 
This is contrary to typical 'recycled radio' homebrewer practice! 

If you want to see real master homebrewing on this side of the pond, look up 
the articles by Bob McGraw, W2LYH. I never met Bob, but I worked him several 
times and still have his letters. I wonder what happened to his rig when his 
key went silent in 2000.


> 
> The main reason it's not exactly crowded here in this niche is that 
> nobody on the nationwide ham scene has his thumb on the scale to 
> expand it beyond the niche.  

You mean push the agenda. Agreed! 

 Indeed, by steadily encouraging the 
> 
> most 'technologically advanced' modes (available to the non-degreed 
> engineer only as manufactured equipment) the ARRL has 
> discouraged homebrewing.  



It doesn't have to be that way: Even with 
> 
> all the competing activities now, building radios is unique and would 
> appeal to many, if there were a serious effort to promote it.   And the 
> regenerative effect would reverse, giving us more sources of parts and 
> projects ...

Sure - but who will bell that cat?

I'm pretty sure that G2DAF built his projects under his own steam, as it 
were. Meaning he built them for himself, then shared what he had done for little 
or nothing. His projects were specifically designed (as were W6TC's) to use 
then-currently-available new parts, and leave scrounging/substitution up to the 
builder's choice.

How many hams in the USA today would be willing to do G2DAF-level projects 
using only currently-available new parts and write them up? I betcha QST would 
publish them, and they might even make it into the Handbook if pitched that 
way. 

I hesitate to mention the following, but for historical accuracy it needs to 
be said: Many Americans, particularly from the end of WW2 to about 1970 or 
even later, were somewhat blinded by the "we're #1/best in the world/we won the 
war/we went to the moon" philosophy. Particularly wrt technology.

Remember all the jokes when those funny little cars from West Germany showed 
up here - and how they weren't redesigned every year? It took a while before 
folks began to realize that they had certain distinct advantages over Detroit 
iron.

Try to tell a US ham in 1968 that a homebrew British receiver was as good or 
better than almost anything used by US hams and you'd simply not be believed. 
Of course, that was before Ikensu took over...

> 
> That would be good for everyone ... 


AGREED!

Diatribe mode OFF.
> 
> 
> 

Somebody oughta do a guest editorial for QST...

73 de Jim, N2EY


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