[TenTec] New Radios in the Future

[Richards]

Geeze, Rick ... now you sound ... well...  kinda OLD ... ;-)      ;-)

Modern hams have moved beyond the crystal radio and (as someone on this 
list says)  building a kit without experimenting is just solder practice.

What was fun for you may not be fun for other hams.  Stuff changes and 
it is neither good nor bad... just different.  I don't want to build my 
grandfather's radio kit - I want to build the future of radio.   Look at 
all the computer programming that is going on in ham radio.  Would 
anyone suggest we go back to when we did not have computers?   I think 
of N8LP who builds complex power meters and panadapters, and who will 
(someday) will release the very complex and capable LP-500 station 
monitor - very advanced stuff unavailable just a years ago.

I had lunch yesterday with one of the local guys, a German guy actually 
(ref Bad Friedeburg,)  who, invented and builds interface boards and 
Android apps which decode digital modes on Android smart phones and 
tablets.  He was featured on the cover of QST last year. He was decoding 
something right at the lunch table!  Very cool.  He is having a ball - 
but if we adopt your take, I suppose he should be reinventing the wheel 
by building a crystal set or an old Heathkit power meters kit, instead.

Other local guys are building a remotely controlled station, with 
remotely controlled antenna switches and lots more, because they are 
condo dwellers who want to operate in the country.  The gear is located 
on a farm owned by one of their sons.   Why rain on their parade just 
because you are nostalgic for YOUR good old days?   One of them built an 
Arduino based "fox box" to hide during fox hunts, with vastly more 
capabilities than we have on the PIC based fox controllers.   It seems 
kinda of parochial to say they are not having as much fun as you did 
with your first kit.  These things are way more sophisticated than you 
allow, and can do so much more.

No one is selling the past short... but hams are moving on.   I don't 
think we can stop it!    Many hams don't wanna play they way their like 
Grandpas played.  Perhaps, you are selling the future short.  Nostalgia 
is for old guys  who don't wanna keep up !! ;-)     ;-)

Remember, as N1KPR says,  "It's all good."

--------------------------K8JHR --------------------------


On 11/1/2014 6:44 AM, Rick - DJ0IP / NJ0IP wrote:
> "there is no better time to be a radio UI homebrewer"
> Oh, I do not agree with that!
>
> I agree it is a good thing that people continue to home brew anything at
> all, but I can't see how the thrill of programming a computer board or radio
> that they bought can compare with the thrill of hearing that first radio
> station when I built my first crystal radio in 1958, cat-whisker and all.
>
> I don't want to take anything away from the people participating in the
> makers movement, but let's not sell the past too short either.  These makers
> could still build their own radio today if they wanted to.  They have other
> interests.
>
>
_________________________________________________