[Milsurplus] What was the ARRL thinking ?

[Robert Nickels]

On 9/26/2026 6:29 PM, Hubert Miller via Milsurplus wrote:
> But the receiver ! It's 4 transistors, 2 ICs, and 5 coils to wind. If 
> that's not enough fun yet, you also get to etch the printed circuit board

Hue, just my opinion - but both hams, and the ARRL of that era was very 
different than it is today.   The spirit of mentorship was strong and  
young hams would have likely been able to find a local "Elmer" willing 
to help them along.  QST was still primarily a technical journal filled 
with construction and theory articles to help hams advance their 
knowledge of electronics and communications.  Part of that was 
continuously revising the Handbook and other publications like the one 
you acquired, to reflect the "state of the art".    It was part of their 
mission to educate hams about emerging new technologies - one example 
being the "Lets Talk Transistors" series in the 1960s, and they did the 
same when microcomputers came along.   Specialized techniques like SSTV, 
CW keyboards, RTTY and PSK were all highlighted in ARRL publications 
just as SSB had been in the 50s and FM in the 70s.

I'll certainly agree that having to make your own PC board was  a heavy 
lift for a teenager with an interest in ham radio and that introductory 
publications like this would have better met the readers needs with 
simple easy-to-build projects even if they were based on older 
technology.   As an example,  Don Stoner published several articles 
showing how simple converters could be used ahead of BC-453 receivers to 
make very good performing receivers.   Those sets were almost literally 
"dime a dozen" back then and a simple one or two band converter could 
have been built using either a tube or a couple transistors and 
point-to-point construction.   With the 85 kc IF and stable LO, the 
performance would have been far better than most simple receivers and 
the builder would gain some experience without having to undertake the 
burden of the metalwork etc.  Of course Stoner wrote for "brand X" and 
the ARRL always had it's own ways and strongly-held attitudes.

My frustration with the ARRL is based on their abandonment of this 
time-honored educational mission in recent years.   I'm afraid that 
we'll see continued "progress" along the same lines.

73, Bob W9RAN
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/milsurplus/attachments/20260928/fb1678ae/attachment.html>