[Premium-Rx] A Policy Question

[Terry O'Laughlin]

This is a classic discussion.  I have used and repaired many premium 
receivers and have an SDR-14 in the Electronics Club in the college where I 
teach.  I don't distinguish between them.  They are interesting boxes that 
do cool stuff with RF inputs.

Other issues may be driving this discussion.  A love of conversion 
schemes?  A dislike of digital signal processing technology?  A 
predisposition toward self contained receivers?  A bias against personal 
computers having a role in a radio hobby?

We have an ongoing discussion on a similar dilemma in my department.  Do we 
spend too much time grinding students through circuit basics and all the 
arcane analysis techniques?  In a four year college this may be fine.  But 
I teach in a two year college where after something over 1000 hours of 
instruction graduates are expected to function in an electronics 
job.  There is a good probability it will be a job where programming skills 
are becoming a fact of life.  So do I teach them how to put a small analog 
filter on a line to slow the response?  Or do I teach them to put a loop in 
the code to slow the response?  We argue about this every semester.  We 
usually end continuing to grind their noses through the same ground we 
plowed as undergraduates.

I enjoy repairing premium receivers as a hobby but that's all it is.  The 
cutting edge of premium radios continues to sail over the horizon.  But 
it's all the same ocean and the same RF spectrum.

Terry O'