Bill, W6WRT wrote:
> ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
>
> On Sat, 6 Feb 2010 20:18:17 +0200, "Alex Eban" <alexeban@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>> The tendency to pay someone else to do the job robs a lot of people of the
>> thrills of creating something new with their own hands.
>>
>
>
Bill, what you say makes a lot of sense.
> REPLY:
>
> If a person really does get a thrill out of it, fine, but that runs
> contrary to history.
I sometimes forget that others find little interest in doing the things
I do.
> I hate to sound preachy, but the Industrial
> Revolution is the history of people specializing in various fields. We
> are most effective when we do what we do best, earn money for it, and
> pay someone else to do what they do best. We can't all be the best at
> everything.
>
By necessity any field I can think of as split into multiple disciplines
and those disciplines end up with specialists within them.
When I was *much* younger living on a farm, we had to know how to repair
virtually every piece of equipment we used. In the winters we would
rebuild the engines and all work was done in the barns or sheds. The
only time something went to a shop was if it was too big for us to
handle. Splitting the differential on one of those big tractors was
borderline and sometimes akin to finding yourself working on top of the
tower and realizing you are hanging onto more antenna than you can
safely handle. Instead of specialists, we were generalists, but things
were not terribly complicated either.
With my first car, I rebuilt the engine so many times I almost wore it
out. 35 years later my son did the same thing to the engine in his car
and pretty much killed that poor engine with kindness.
We were talking about programming earlier. In the years after college
and before retirement, I saw more languages come and go than I ever
learned. When I started, we learned computer architecture and actually
wrote programs in machine language (not assembler) to directly
manipulate the workings inside the CPU, but that was a different world
too. All of the CPU instructions were contained on what was
affectionately called a "bingo card". It was actually a folding card
with two double sided pages with close to a few hundred instructions.
Today's CPUs instructions number well into the thousands. No way can a
normal individual learn more than a fraction of the languages available
and become proficient. I've worked with computers since they used core
memory, loaded the OS from punched tape, and the machine code loader had
to be entered with push buttons on the front panel, an operation that
could take an hour to hour and a half.
I view Ham Radio the same way. Traffic handlers are one of the reasons
we still exist, although I have absolutely no interest in handling
traffic. I do find storm chasing ... interesting. I enjoy building, but
I'm limited to the bigger parts...within reason...bad back. So I have a
valid reason for building QRO <:-)).
However when it comes to kits I don't see much difference between the
old kits where we built a complete, modern transceiver and the K3 where
you plug in parts. I constructed a lot of those kits and other than
being more work and knowing how to solder you didn't learn a lot more
than some one plugging the parts into the K3. True it took hundreds of
hours and many individual parts so you knew what resistors, capacitors,
and coils looked like. If the builder was...well...just building, which
most were, at best they learned how to do a neat wiring job, but those
that wanted to could learn a bit of basic electronics.
As many know, I fly high performance airplanes
http://www.rogerhalstead.com/833R/833r_photos.htm , but there is little
that I can actually do except change the oil and tires, wash the
windows, and vacuum the carpet. For one the regulations are so strict
I'm not even supposed to work on the radios however the new radios are
far more complex than anything I have here. More expensive too!
I love flying, but find few others who do in the general population. The
general reaction is usually, "I hope he doesn't get started on flying,
or his airplane again". Of course the same could be said about any of my
other interests, Ham radio in particular as the general public only sees
it as a hobby with no practical use, just like 4 and 6 passenger
airplanes. They don't realize the truth behind "when all else fails,
there is Amateur Radio", nor will they listen.
So, yes we've not only progressed into specialists, but specialists who
may not even understand other segments of the same field and many of
which do not want to.
Oh! as to the exams...I've been reading through the question pool, and
so far most of what I've read pertains to operating practices and
protocols. I read through the Extra portion and my reaction was, "why
would I care about this?" to almost every question. Why devote time and
questions to contests when you have to look up the rules for every
contest anyway as they tend to change.
Sorry about the soapbox<:-))
73
Roger (K8RI)
> Having said that however, I don't want to take away from the
> satisfaction of homebrewing. I do it and I encourage others to do it,
> but at the same time I understand those who do not want to.
>
> My two cents.
>
> 73, Bill W6WRT
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