Part 2:Whether Icom or Kenwood or Ten Tec or others would survive without Hams is highly unlikely. Codan might as its market is purely commercial and it has seduced the Navy from high quality Mil-Spec equipment to using throw away commercial sets. . Whether or not you agree entirely with me..., the ideas perpetrated in this post of "Hams" are often completely facetious...Traditional Hams were and are more likely to be fresh faced, lively, extremely intelligent men and often the same but whether beautiful or 'average' women, women of great substance, always ready to serve in emergency...and when power goes out commercial and even military service sometimes crashes. In places like Vanuatu, for example, the demise of Hams sees an "impossible to find" Amateur Radio emergency service there, and it is a duller place and one which is a disaster waiting to happen without a strong Amateur radio service.
Traditional Amateurs have communication, adaptability and organisational skills which can see them quickly if not instantly of use in Military needs in the event of war or disaster. As far as the de-emphasising of Morse code goes....that is one of the most stupid things any radio society has ever suppoted or any government has ever done. I will not embark on the importance and advantages of morse code here, suffice it to say it was of critical value in both World wars, forward (pioneer) radios in Vietnam were cw only but some with an 'AM' (analogue double side-band) receive facility but not on transmit. Fortunately thousands of Hams have kept the skills and hundreds use them....although personally I am not a fan of vibroplex , I think straight key...but I hold my greatest disgust for amateurs who use a keyboard and computer to send morse....or a 'reader' to read it....such has the so called "Ham" devolved in some cases .
My experience in Vanuatu was one of complete disappointment in the dormant Amateur Radio service. On the other hand really isolated islands in the Pacific and elsewhere so very often saw Methodist and other religious servants on the air and making contact regularly with the outside world and from them a QSL card was highly sought after. Whilst as someone stated power in USA can be up to 1500Watts PEP many of us are seeking our enjoyment from QRP (reduced power) of 5 watts or less. The idea that 1500 watts is 300 times more effective than 5 watts is completely wrong, however for many years it was extremely frustrating to have one's low power signal lost under the 1000Watts and a 12dB gain beam antenna of "I have the best" Americans in particular.Now the real traditionalist is using QRP and CW or home brew, sometimes bought and restored, 1930's -1950's restored gear, and WW11 military gear..which often pops up just for use on WW11 commemoration days .Unfortunately in some ways spark transmitter are no longer permitted!!
Yes, I am not entirely free of the black box sickness...apart from a Kenwood 820S (currently about to have its VCO repaired!when I get some work finished.
Kenwood-Trio or "Kenwood" after overshadowing "Trio" turned out some bad manufacturing faults (see eHam reviews) and some design errors which Hams rapidly found and fixed and reported upon )..I only have it because it uses tube 'finals' and because I have put narrow cw filters into my 2 Kenwoods. and so I feel some affection for them and they ARE about 30 years old.
My second and favorite is Kenwood TS 130S I use for QRP, a couple of home-brew QRP transceivers I have been unable to operate owing to body corporate Kapo's with their anti-antenna fetishes...about to be circumvented .. BC 348's, ART-13, BC 342, ZC1 Mk2 and various other command sets including the superbly made 1930's aircraft radios..who's limitations on SSB are more noted than in more sophisticated radios but those of the SCR/ARC 5 series were of enormous interest to Amateurs and evoke some kind of 'genetic' nostalgia...as does say a Californian bungalow or a Federation home or 'Ranch Style'...or even a cave... .
Modern and even traditional hams compare these more basic radio sets with the modern IC based factory built transceivers, and they have a point but.......as far as I am concerned and rrespective of the old and sometimes counterproductive rule against criticising another Ham...back 'then", it is certainly well deserved today. Why..it is wrong to be silent as Ham radio slides and is pushed by wireless society powre-brokers into being a more versatile CB radio avenue of sometimes CB styled sewer talk, bickering, band hogging, identification avoiding tradition-less, engineeringly sterile, 3rd party message carrying, black box society.
They have 'lost it"..they are armchair chatterboxes who demand they have a box of electronics to cover every possible need to have a QSO, other than incorporating a coffee maker and biscuit tin...
There IS such a thing as actually missing a contact without life as we know it crashing and burning. The self discipline and expertise on the air and the work it can take to get communication using old equipment which one has worked upon to improve or restore or even just get working is what makes a Ham, a Ham.
Any fool can pass a foundation licence and operate and any lazy minded Ham can use store bought gear and the richer the Ham the flasher the gear. Yes that may be handy in some emergency but it's not really the art of Ham radio personified. Not in my book anyway. Does that however prove in anyway that Amateur radio should be relegated to the tip and commercial services be all we should tolerate? The answer is no ..now, and in the future, so long as the traditional Ham can be found somewhere...so important to this world has been Amateur radio and its operators.
That which makes the Amateur radio service what it was and should be are the communication skills, enterprise, dogged determination, experimentation, research, creativity, performance in emergencies including wartime, depth of engineering ability and brotherly assistance, the construction of or modification to traditional radio, the expertise in morse code to hold communication open in the worst operating conditions....
The idea that Hams should be "right up there with modern technology has a point but when the idea was promulgated the "black box" radio service was only a PART of Amateur radio, and as I said Hams could buy kit-sets and build them as well as building from and improving on designs of other Hams from the ARRL and RSGB handbooks, QST, CQ, Practical Wireless, Radio and Hobbies and other interesting and absorbing Ham Radio Operator produced periodicals.
The "off the shelf" operator today who is not an experimenter is a self deluded product of lazy minded, over paid and tradition-less operator ..maybe one simply bored with his old challenges...or one who likes to boast about the store bought gear he uses...a sort of ego trip... seeking easy QSL recognition and avoiding almost anything a Ham should be doing to maintain traditions ...... but be that as it may they can still contribute in emergencies, are still lawfully "Hams" and are generally very decent fellows and ladies. I hope I never join their superficiality based ranks....and so keep at the Military reconstructions and the home-brew.
The Collins URR 390/391 tube radios were of such magnificence technically and in use that though designed in 1949 and built until at least 1954 the US pulled some out of storage and restored them for use in NASA and in the stage 1 "TV entertainment/propaganda based" invasion of Iraq. Nothing else could, it seems, reliably handle the conditions and the demands. If that doesn't make you think, I suggest you do some research on these sets an that situation.
Having said that, there are many far greater and more active Hams than I am and so for me It is gratifying, stimulating, exciting, to see the extraordinary skill and detail proud restoration work of US amateurs in particular in finding and rebuilding old spark gap radios...they are a joy...search the internet yourself for photos...and in restoring military radios from WW1 and WW11 of which the HRO-W built at the end of WW11 and the numerous and varied National HRO sets built before it back into the 1930's.
The HRO valve/tube receiver in its many guises is one of the most deservedly famed wireless receivers of WW11secret service as in enigma and code breaking but so also is the wonderful and more prolific..and much lighter... BC 348 which though a lesser set than the BC342 is the most well known of all WW11 bomber command wireless sets..in all its guises and variations.Both are still in high demand today.
There must still be such spark gap and early (pre-1930) radio transmitting and receiving equipment lying in cases in attics in every country of the world which had WW1 military action or had an Amateur Service and if you find something that looks like it could be an antique Radio "thingo" even if found when demolishing an house.....please, please, contact one of these groups and pass it on to a restorer....even with your name on a plaque when it is restored, should see you bursting with pride....or you can commission a restoration , or even just ask for a photo-set of the whole restoration. Join us in learning what real Amateur radio is all about...even if you are not ever going to become one...
Ok, this is Victor Kilo two, Mike Sierra standing by........QSL..?..QTX..?.
Voila.!!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
