Sadly, Rob and Jim are right. The numbers are there, but the activity isn't.
Case in point, tonight, 40 and 80 cw are ghost towns. 160m has stns piled on
top of each other for the arrl top band contest, but on 80 and 40 tonight
there's nothing to be heard.
Sometimes I fear that when I am finally able to retire in 10 years or so to
the hamshack, there won't be anyone left to talk to.
My college roommate got his ham ticket 10 yrs or so ago, for some kind of
emergency services, but has never bought a radio or been on air. He doesn't
even know his callsign. I had to look it up for him awhile back when he
needed to renew. For various reasons, there's quite a number of folks like
that who have licenses, but do not really participate.
Even great companies that make great products can have difficulties if
there's no one left to buy their products.
73 de Jack W4TJE
Fancy Gap, VA
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Allen
Sent: Friday, December 04, 2015 2:38 PM
To: Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment
Subject: Re: [TenTec] TenTec Digest, Vol 156, Issue 4
There are also a large number of licensees who never operate on ham bands,
don't think of themselves as hams, but have licenses because they have a
boat that goes off shore. There are a great many with the same address,
usually the local yacht club. They use winlink and repeaters some.
I bought a boat from a couple who were both licensed, but they didn't know
their callsigns. Those were taped on the bulkhead by the radio on the
boat, in phonetics. There were ~140 licensees in town but barely 2 dozen
who were "real hams."
73 de W6OGC Jim Allen
Sent from my iPad
On Dec 4, 2015, at 9:09 AM, rick@dj0ip.de <Rick@DJ0IP.de> wrote:
Wow, either I lived in the wrong part of the states or things are a lot
quieter in the north.
I lived in Oklahoma from 2007 until 2010 and mostly just operated 40m and
a
few bigger contests.
I also was only on the air on weekends.
I found the band very crowded.
I never operated 160 in the states but I do remember 80m being wall to
wall,
especially in the AM days.
Granted the upper bands are not so crowded, but here in Europe, 80 and 40
are very tight spaced.
I almost always run my Eagle with 1.8 kHz on SSB and on CW usually 100 or
200 Hz.
Of course our low bands are smaller than your bands are. Maybe that's why
they are more crowded.
On the licensing bit, nearly every ham I know here in Germany also has a
stateside call sign.
It's kind of a "in" thing to do. That also inflates the numbers.
73 - Rick, DJ0IP/NJ0IP/G5BMH
(Nr. Frankfurt, Germany)
-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Rob
Atkinson
Sent: Friday, December 04, 2015 12:36 PM
To: tentec@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TenTec] TenTec Digest, Vol 156, Issue 4
Our bands are way more crowded than they were back in the 70s, the days
of
the Triton IV.
Far more hams have amplifiers than back then.
Simple crystal filters won't cut it. They lack the steep skirts of the
DSP
filters.
I see the complete opposite at least in North America. The level of
activity on average on HF is much less than it was 40 years ago. Back
then
160 m. was wall to wall at night. 80 m. cw was jammed. You
could not find a clear frequency in the evening on 75. There is a
myth based on the number of licensees but the total includes SKs, VHF ops,
EmComms, paper hams, cyber hams, one day wonder test takers on a lark,
astronauts, XYLs who now operate cell phones, and many other vestigial
hams
and when you subtract all of these, you are down to maybe at most 50,000
operating active HF hams.
Now, even QRMtests on weekends don't take out the whole band like they
used to. And the sidewalks get rolled up at around 9 p.m. Tune
around late and there's almost nothing.
I operate mostly now with receivers from the 1940s and 1950s. No
filters but IF cans. Maybe a ceramic filter in the 75A-3. No
problems. The problem with making and selling a simple set is that
it would be impossible to buy production quantities of parts, assemble
here
in the US, and sell at a price competitive with every vintage rig at any
hamfest flea market. Sit down and make a rough list of needed parts, go
looking on Mouser and other vendors and add up the cost.
add in labor and other overhead and you will quickly see it won't fly.
73
Rob
K5UJ
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