From: "Lee Buller" <k0wa@swbell.net>
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 7:22 AM
To: <amps@contesting.com>
Subject: [Amps] Why people don't build amps. $$$ and Shop Class
> The information to build amps or radios is available on the internet. A
> wealth of information is out there, but you must be willing to learn on
> your own. Today's hams have seemed to have lost that aspect of
> radio...learning something to get that higher class license or a sense of
> wanting to know how it works. Ham Radio taught me that I could learn by
> myself. I did not have to have a teacher....just books...parts....and a
> little help from an Elmer. I wanted to learn. That is not the case
> today. Nuff said, to political in nature.
>
> More could be said, but I have bored the reader already
----------------
I am not bored. Good post, Lee.
I don't agree that the subject is too political, though. I think it bears
thought and discussion. And, I think you have hit the nail on the head.
There HAS been a generational change in the desire of most bright people to
want to learn how things work. Why has this happened?
One reason seems clear: Most technological stuff has grown too complex for
an ordinary individual to understand how it works, even with significant
self-study. Can one still learn and understand how an RF power amplifier
works? Yes, of course. But that is old technology that few people, excepting
a few amateurs and fewer professionals, find interesting and pertinent to
real life. Try learning and understanding how the cellular communications
system works. Really, down to the detailed level. Think you really
understand it? Could you home-brew a cell phone system from discrete
components? In almost all cases, the answer would be NO.
And significantly, I think, neither could even the brightest engineers
involved in that industry. Some small part of the system, maybe, depending
on their engineering specialty. But there is simply too much complex,
interdependent technology there for one person to master. Technology has
moved from the realm of human invention and creation to the realm of
participation in a process much larger than oneself. And this trend is
mushrooming and evolving at warp speed.
At some point, humans will move from the realm of being active creative
participants in technological innovation to being merely managers of
machines and machine systems that do the creative innovation themselves.
This is not science fiction; it is happening right now, as we speak.
This is changing our society, obviously, but more important, it is changing
US. It is changing the way we see ourselves as independent, causative agents
in our own lives. Some of us who see this happening and grasp the
implications are just plain scared, and we rebel, get angry, become
politically reactionary. But it's going to go where it's going to go. None
of us is "in control" any more in the same way we've grown accustomed to
thinking about that.
Most of us hams, especially those of us on this board, are in the autumn of
our years, to put it charitably. Ham radio has been a wonderful hobby for
most of us; it certainly has been for me. And I continue to enjoy it
tremendously, especially now that I know more and have more of the means to
participate in the aspects of the hobby that interest me. But I don't expect
ham radio as we have known it will survive unchanged into the next few
generations. If it survives another half-century -- and I think that is far
from certain -- it will be very different than what we have collectively
known and created.
That's OK with me -- because, not to put too fine a point on it, there ain't
nuthin' I can do about it anyway. :-)
Bill W5WVO
_______________________________________________
Amps mailing list
Amps@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/amps
|