[Amps] Fleamarkets

[david sutton]

All very true statments.
You see it on the amateur radio groups all the time. most on this group will agree i'm sure,  Just reading posts from some ham's makes my skine cringe. 
The comment Dave G0OIL made about Dayton and the vacume capacitors he was carying. unfortunatley nowa days you don't need to know what a risistor or Cap looks like you just got to be able to remember what the right answer is to the question.
I to remember the time back in england, when you walked down the High street Tandy and Richards electric, all sold electronic part's, my local Richard electric's was owned by a Radio Ham G3VZR. he sold washing machine part's and Heathkit, kits and a ham's tresure trove of parts. The manger in Tandy was a ex-royal signles sg maj, Now today if you go into Radio shack, you will find youngsters capable of telling you how to send text on your cell phone, but not an idea as to what those things are in the grey draw racks at the back of the store are for or do.
my 2 cent's
Dave

Brits with a southern call? how strange, only when you hear the accent.
see kg4uxr on :-
www.qrz.com/callsign/kg4uxr




________________________________
From: Scott McGrath mcgrath at fas.harvard.edu

Subject: Re: [Amps] Fleamarkets

Unfortunately due to the loss of electronic manufacturing in the US,  
The majority of the technical population in the US has NEVER constructed 
an electronic device and parts sources are few and far between,  I'm in 
my early forties and I can remember  Radio Shack, Lafayette Radio and my 
town had Evans Radio and Stark Brothers electronics so you had parts and 
books by people like Forest Mims on building electronic gadgets.

Popular Electroncs had articles on building a "TV Typewriter" now we 
have "How to hook up your Home Theater".  Ah just another step towards 
a third world economy i.e. Import manufactured goods and Export raw 
materials and agricultural products.



Dr. David Kirkby wrote:
> Jim Thomson wrote:
>  
>> From: Dave White <mausoptik at btinternet.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Amps] why did Heath die?
>>
>> What did surprise me was that when I bought a couple of large vacuum variable capacitors on the fleamarket at Dayton and was carrying them around and back to the car, I lost count of the number of guys with extra class callsign badges who asked me what they were.  Is there a message in there somewhere?
>>
>> Dave G0OIL
>>
>> ##  That is a sad state of affairs, to say the least. 
>>    
>
> I recall reading somewhere that in the RAE exam (or whatever it might be called 
> now in the UK), X % of the candidates did not know how to wire a 13 A plug. The 
> pass mark was Y %. I can't recall X or Y, but I know X was greater than Y. It 
> stuck me as wrong, that the pass mark could be higher than the percentage of 
> people who know how to wire up a plug.
>
> An American ham once said to me that a typical project now in QST was:
>
> "How to Build a 12V 1A Power Supply with a 7812 Voltage Regulator"
>
> It is a sad state of affairs. I wonder if making the exam harder, so people have 
> to do more work to get a ticket would help. Or would it just put more people 
> off, and be worst for the hobby.
>
> Dave