[TowerTalk] Antenna Switching - Complexity for its own sake?

[Alan NV8A (ex. AB2OS)]

On 09/23/05 04:05 pm Tom Rauch tossed the following ingredients into the 
ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

> I think the real problem is Amateur Radio is less and less a
> technical hobby. It's difficult to get articles, and those
> they can get will always make some people unhappy. They will
> either be too simple (speaker box), too specific to a narrow
> application,  or too complex.
> 
> It used to be easy to write an article with general appeal.
> A Novice transmitter article would have hundreds of people
> interested. I know dozens of people, myself included, who
> used to build complicated receivers like the HBR14 and 16
> that appeared in QST.
> 
> I'd wager if a transmitter or receiver article was published
> today, very few people would be interested.

Finding the parts to build a state-of-the-art transmitter or receiver 
would be the challenge, and buying them in small quantities (once found) 
would probably make the project outrageously expensive.

Look at the quantity-one price for the PC board alone for that antenna 
switcher. IMO the only way one is going to build a receiver or 
transmitter from scratch would be to buy a kit (where somebody else has 
already taken advantage of the quantity discounts) or to build a bunch 
of them as a group project (where the group benefits from quantity 
discounts) -- and any ten hams would probably choose 15 different designs.

If I could come up with the cash for an extra rig, I'd consider building 
a K2 -- except that I'm not sure my aging eyes are up to it.

73

Alan NV8A