[Yaesu] Todays' Radio Manuals

[W5HTW@att.net]

<< wonder if this is saying something about the
competency of hams today versus in years past.  If it
has changed that much, the last thing we need to do is
make the licensing procedures any easier.>>

Yes, it does say something about the competency, although not necessarily *always* what that implies.  Certainly the overall technical skills of hams have deteriorated from the 50s, 60s and 70s and to some extent, from the 80s.  For the 90s, forget it! 

But most modern radios are digitized and with ultra-small components.  The days of replacing a grid leak resistor, or a plate load resistor, or plate blocking capacitor, are gone, except for those of us who thrill to the beat of the radios we had 40 years ago.  

Not many technically qualified hams can work on today's radios,  though there are exceptions.  Actually I'd love to see block diagrams of radios included in the operator's manual, but schematics for these radios can be very extensive.  The one for my Icom 706 is several pages and would more than double the thickness of the operator manual - and for a small percentage of people who can use it. It would be meaningless to probably (a guess) 80 percent of hams using such a rig, and hen-scratching to probably 20 percent of those!  They don't want it, would never look at it, and even if they did, they couldn't use it.  Consequently the cost of supplying meaningless info is probably prohibitive.  For those hams who do want to dig into their rigs, as noted, the schematic can often be had for free from the radio manufacturer, just for the asking.  And this reduces cost for the manuals.  We can dream it reduces cost for the radios, but I doubt that is actually true.  

As to the level of operating instruction, that is indeed written for The New Ham Operator. Many of them are reminiscent of the "Your First CB Radio" booklet.  And the fact is, many hams purchasing these rigs will actually need that level of instruction to get them up and running.  When the new ham was put into the Novice surroundings, he had an opportunity to learn something.  That opportunity no longer exists.  So these rigs and manuals are indeed intended for the first time user, the new ham.   

Ed
--
Ed Brooks, W5HTW
http://w5htw.home.att.net/index.html
Active since June 1956 Extra since
Jan 1970