[Amps] Decline of homebrewing?

[Jim Thomson]

Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2017 05:17:32 -0600
From: Rob Atkinson <ranchorobbo at gmail.com>
To: "amps at contesting.com" <amps at contesting.com>
Subject: [Amps]  Decline of homebrewing?

All this demonstrates is that there are two ham radios, and some of
you inhabit a world foreign to mine.  In my ham radio, nearly everyone
I know is a "ham in a basement with a soldering iron."   Building is
cost effective because the parts are not purchased new.  There are
these things called hamfests.  You ignore the shiny new junk and stay
outside in the flea market where the quality parts are:  Cardwell air
variable caps, Radio switches, EFJ edge wound plated coils, Sangamo
cast mica caps etc.

"Few hams today are
comfortable working with high-voltage vacuum tube circuits,"  Really?
That statement is mind boggling.  I feel like I'm in a parallel ham
universe.  Everyone I know runs tubes.  I can't imagine radio without
the glass fire bottles.

73

Rob
K5UJ

###  .25 inch OD and also .375 inch and also .50 inch OD cu tubing is
still dirt cheap at my local home depot..and very easy to silver plate.
Much easier to work with than silly smd stuff.   There are more surplus 
ceramic and glass  tune + load caps available these days, than there ever was back in the 70s. 

##  sure, auto tune is nice, but Im not in a rush to keep switching bands every 5 mins.  Besides
I cant wrap  my head around paying $10K  for an alpha 9500...which still has air variable tune+
load caps...and a throw away tube.....and a 35 lb xfmr.  

###  You just have to be careful with B+   on tube amps.  The 3 kv on any SB-220  will kill you just
as well as the 7 kv from my hb B+ supply....  with its 253 lb dahl xfmr + 400 uf filter cap. 

## hb yagis...and hb linears is still one place where the average, at least knowledgeable  ham
can still excel at.   Relatively straight forward vs  say trying to hb a xcvr. 

Jim   VE7RF