[Qcwa] Bragging Rights (A good thing!?)

[J Craswell]

>Hi Jay:

>Actually, I wasn't claiming no one could actually do it;  I know
>many can (I don't count myself among them, by the way).  I was leaning
>more towards the fact that the average Ham of 50 years ago could do so
>AND do it as cheaply with as much functionality, with little more than a
>soldering iron and a reasonable bench setup.  Sorry if I wasn't clear.

I suppose what I am trying to say and what I hope people will think twice
about is that my bench equipment.  i.e. the gear needed to do this is not
that extensive.  If we accept that a typical Short Wave Radio costs a grand
then the
tools to work on it or build new stuff ought to be less than that.  I'm
easily way under that.  And I think my modest set up is just that.  A modest
bench.   An adjustable temp iron is really not that expensive.  Can we stick
to our 100 watt solder irons?  No, of course not.  The cost of solder is low
a solder sucker (ditto) tweezers (ditto)  Now the test equipment can be
anything you like to use.  I've got one of those DVMs (From Radio Shaft) and
I have an old beat up signal generator from HP but a guy could build his own
(As I did) with an Analogue Devices DDS chip for next to nothing.  BTW the
HP was a couple hundred bucks because someone dropped it on the face and
bent the handles.   The use of a scope is I think not so exotic as it might
have been in the 50s.  What is important is that the price of a good used
scope is pretty amazing.  I bought a 350MHz Tektronix scope for a couple
hundred bucks and love being able to "see" what's going on.  Being alive
today and be able to own such super science equipment for next to nothing is
a big plus!  The good old days?  500 KHz scopes and 6V6s?  No thanks!

I think being able to fix your own gear is a plus.  Is it for everyone?
Well no - but I don't believe it ever was.  What I think we should promote
is that it "ought" to be for more folks.   (In my opinion) I don't think we
should make general statements that no one builds their own gear or that no
one can fix this new stuff like the good old days.  Heck I remember thinking
the new parts like Transistors and ICs were too Hard and how could anyone
work on that junk?  Nuvistors were good!  723 Regulators were bad.  <grin>
The problem as I see it is that new hams not knowing any better will nod
their heads and turn into Appliance operators when this is the last thing we
need.  If you step back and look at it this era we live in is actually
pretty nice with the mentality that anything broke is Landfill.  I can't
tell you how many items I've gotten for little to nothing and am using
everyday.  I've got a Lightning blasted FT-847 that works like a charm.  A
FT-100 that had a bad -9 volt supply also working like a charm.  It's all
powered by ASTRON supplies that were "burned up"  My XYLs radio is another
lightning special.   That one was really toasted but a new audio circuit
(The real one cost too much so I glued in an Audio chip I had in the junk
box) and some parts in the front end and some new coils put it back on the
air in good fashion.  Heck I may never buy anything new again as long as
people break stuff and want to toss it! <grin>  My cost on a most of this
was
the gas to drive over and pick it up and the replacement parts.  Did I spend
a lot of time on it?  Some I did others not much.  If I was charging $75 an
hour as some techs do I think I would still be way ahead.  But I don't
charge $75 to fix my own stuff <grin>  And it's fun and gives you a little
bragging rights which I hope my fellow QCWA members will do more of.
Bragging about being able to copy 20+ wpm is good.  Ditto designing your own
radio etc.  Isn't that one of the goals of the part 97 regs?  Increased
operator skill and technical ability?

73 my friend!  de Jay W0VNE

p.s. KA0KLV reports my repair job on the little Icom is still working.  (Got
my fingers crossed)  He is buying lunch for sure!