[Amps] Why people don't build amps. $$$ and Shop Class

[Lee Buller]

I love to build, but I opted to operate and contest and stopped for a decade or more.  I got back into building because of Elecraft and the K2.  Nuff said about that.

I find it hard to find parts.  Well, I will be blunt here.  I don't like to "pay" the price for today's parts.  Now, with that said, let me explain a little.  I got my first license in 1965 at the age of 15.  Parts were plentiful still from WWII and ripping apart old TV sets that had massive transformers.  I still have some of those parts.  They were either cheap or free.  Free!  Many times, Elmers would give me their junk.  That is how I build my first amp...a pair of 811As in Push-Pull class B.  Hey, it worked!  

Now, you cannot find "free" anymore...or at least it might be very rare.  Again, I need to change my building paradigm to something else....I cannot be cheap...and it ain't going to be free.

For instance....I have been looking at building a GI-7B amp.  Tubes are cheap and plentiful  I have many of the parts I need...variable caps, coils, meters, etc.  I can homebrew a tube stock easily.  But, I cannot find a transformer that isn't going to cost me, what I think is an outrageous price.  Again, I have to change my paradigm.

Finding parts for RF - tubes, caps, coils, chokes - seems to be fairly easy to find at a reasonable price, but when it comes to iron transformers there is not a lot to choose from that doesn't cost you 300 to 500 dollars.  I just discovered transformers at MFJ and that seems to be the best deal out there.

Why build something, when you can buy an amp for 700 dollars?

Also, some people have no skills drilling a hole or using tools.  Shop class in High School is long gone.
A lot of people entering the hobby have opted for homebrewing software, not hardware.  Why?  They grew up with computers and gaming equipment, not radios.

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

Lee - K0WA
"Curmudgeon in Kansas"
"I still think I am 15"
"I still think I am cool - even though I am 60 now"




 Ham Radio Operators:  Kansas QSO Party is August 28-29, 2010.  See www.ksqsoparty.org for details

In our day and age it seems that Common Sense is in short supply.  If you don't have any Common Sense - get some Common Sense and use it.  If you can't find any Common Sense, ask for help from somebody who has some Common Sense.  Is Common Sense divine?

Common Sense is the image of the Creator expressing revealed truth in my mind. -  J. Wolf