View Full Version : Spoiled by technology
KA4DPO
02-23-2008, 05:20 PM
An interesting point was raised in another thread regarding bandscopes and the abilities of new rigs.
How many remember running a separate receiver and transmitter and trying to spot a Kc away from the DX without messing up the recieve, then tune the transmitter then go for it. Took some time and you had to think about what you were doing. Seems like now you just center the bandscope and use a mouse to point and click and presto, you're there.
How many remember having a reciever that didn't have a notch filter.
How many remember when noise blankers were hardly effective except for certain kinds of noise.
Lastly, how many remember having a rig with crystal phasing control to adjust the selectivity.
W2BBQ
02-23-2008, 05:44 PM
Dude, What's your point? Complaining because time doesn't stand still? Complaining about advances in technology? Yearning for the "good ol' days?"
Do you really want to go back and live the way things were 50, 100 years ago?
I bet you'd take about 1 day of that and come back here to today yelling, kicking and screaming.
Must be a slow day on the ol' thought maker :confused:
good luck anyway
K8MHZ
02-23-2008, 07:15 PM
How many remember having a reciever that didn't have a notch filter.
I have several in my shack.
A71AN
02-23-2008, 07:33 PM
An interesting point was raised in another thread regarding bandscopes and the abilities of new rigs.
How many remember running a separate receiver and transmitter and trying to spot a Kc away from the DX without messing up the recieve, then tune the transmitter then go for it. Took some time and you had to think about what you were doing. Seems like now you just center the bandscope and use a mouse to point and click and presto, you're there.
How many remember having a reciever that didn't have a notch filter.
How many remember when noise blankers were hardly effective except for certain kinds of noise.
Lastly, how many remember having a rig with crystal phasing control to adjust the selectivity.
The world my friend is changing and as long as these changes do better things for huminty, it is not bad, we like to go forward and be developed more and more as the time pass on, I do not like to go back to the stone age!
73
ab8ma
02-23-2008, 07:39 PM
Nostalgia. Pure and simple. Ever wonder why no good music has been written in the last 36 years?
I wonder what the young hams of today (many here on QRZ) will be writing in another 40 years about the good old days.
VO1GXG
02-23-2008, 08:09 PM
I have several in my shack.
i got 4 and a transmitter you have to tune :D
[QUOTE=W2BBQ;1143832]Dude, What's your point? Complaining because time doesn't stand still? Complaining about advances in technology? Yearning for the "good ol' days?"
Do you really want to go back and live the way things were 50, 100 years ago?
I bet you'd take about 1 day of that and come back here to today yelling, kicking and screaming.
Must be a slow day on the ol' thought maker :confused:
Dude, was He really complaining, or just trying to bring back memories for some of us that rememember those days? It was a good time back then, just not as convenient as most of today's technology.
Back then you could even have an idea of how long someone had been around just by their call sign,but yes, thing sure do change. These days it is quite common to find guys that couldn't survive using the kind of gear DPO is talking about. Sorry that our reminicsing bothers you so much.
ai4ep
02-23-2008, 09:53 PM
be careful what you wish for.... world war 4 might be using sticks, stones .
KA4DPO brings up a topic I have pondered over the years. Some of the other OFs might remember when HF transceivers started to appear. Lots of us were amused but not all that impressed. Figured these were cute little novelty rigs that rich guys might use for mobile or portable operation. However, we weren't about to abandon our separate receiver and transmitter setup. Everybody knew you use your live receiver to monitor your CW note while sending. You use your live receiver for zeroing your transmit frequency with the other station no matter what mode you're operating. And the live receiver is your shack's most valuable diagnostic device for identifying a variety of transmit malfunctions like audio distortion from RFI or improper setup or component failure. Problems like frequency instability, hum, key clicks and many more common ills could be diagnosed right there in the shack by most every amateur.
Forget all of that. Transceivers rule now and it's been this way so long that many amateurs have never been exposed to the idea of real-time monitoring of their signal with a receiver. So we have lost a big chunk of the radio art. Because, transceiver technology has led us away from our old fashioned ideas of monitoring and diagnosing our own signals. Now it's widely accepted if something is wrong with my signal, somebody will tell me about it on the air. Don't get me wrong, I hope somebody will tell me. But there was a time when good amateur practice involved taking responsibility for putting a clean signal on the air. And not putting a dirty signal on the air at all. I'll bet the greatest number of signal quality issues on the bands today could have been resolved by the person in charge of that transmitter if this part of the radio art were still being practiced. So yeah, in this respect I think the technology has given us smarter rigs and dumber radio operators.
KA4DPO
02-23-2008, 11:26 PM
Dude, What's your point? Complaining because time doesn't stand still? Complaining about advances in technology? Yearning for the "good ol' days?"
Do you really want to go back and live the way things were 50, 100 years ago?
I bet you'd take about 1 day of that and come back here to today yelling, kicking and screaming.
Must be a slow day on the ol' thought maker :confused:
good luck anyway
DUDE... My primary rig is a PRO III. I also have a 746 PRO as a backup rig. I'm not complaining about anything. I'm an EE and helped develop a lot of technology while working at Harris in the 70's an 80's that you take for granted. I think your POed because this is one dicussion you can't contribute anything to. :mad: (We need an Icon with baby tears)
Now, hitch up your pampers, crawl back into your playpen and let the big guys talk about radio....:)
KC8OZJ
02-23-2008, 11:27 PM
[QUOTE=KA4DPO;1143818]
How many remember running a separate receiver
I remember my super-regen. receiver. It was a Knight Kit.
wf5tx
02-23-2008, 11:29 PM
KA4DPO ...
Your posts, letters and/or essays are welcome at Sporadic Essays, the flame-proof forum. Well, they can still flame you, but they'll have to come back to the "ZED" to do it!
www.73SE.com
Seems like now you just center the bandscope and use a mouse to point and click and presto, you're there.
Not that simple.
First I had to build the damn thing using surface mount parts.
Not exactly easy as you make it seem.
KA4DPO
02-23-2008, 11:52 PM
Thanks I'll keep that in mind next time I feel the heat. I just don't understand why some people get mentally irregular when someone posts something beyond their comprehention.
Most OT's know what I'm talking about and can really appreciate how truly amazing todays radios are compared to what we had to work with 40 or more years ago.
A good example of this is the digital notch filters on todays radios. Hallicrafters had the Tee notch filter which was pretty good for it's day and could only deal with a single signal. As good as it was. it could not even come close to the DSP auto notch capability on modern receivers.
We also used Q-Multipliers, which were regenerative circuits, to improve IF selectivity. A long way from push button DSP filtering.
Now, hitch up your pampers, crawl back into your playpen and let the big guys talk about radio....:)
I could NOT have said it better myself. :D
KA4DPO
02-23-2008, 11:53 PM
Not that simple.
First I had to build the damn thing using surface mount parts.
Not exactly easy as you make it seem.
I agree, especially when some of the parts are hard to see..:D
BTW, I am referring to my SoftRock rxtx 1w SDR which I use on 40m PSK-31 from time to time.
My primary rig is a ProIII though, in fact it is on right now listening to CO8LY QRMing the 3905ccn net.
KI4WCA
02-24-2008, 03:53 AM
It is true.Comically, to really exploit the uber rigs you still need some acumen.The simpler gear is almost soulless however.My pet peeve are antenna tuners.I can see the huge advantage of automatic units for contesting, as well as the ease of putting one remote right at the random wire feed point for efficiency,BUT if you can't build and use your own manual one....gee, that's SPOILED.
WA9SVD
02-24-2008, 04:02 AM
be careful what you wish for.... world war 4 might be using sticks, stones .
You mean the cockroaches will have learned how to use tools?:(
Obviously, that's a paraphrase from Albert Einstein. But he might have been overly optimistic about the results of WW III. Either way, it's not a pretty picture.
N9MOQ
02-24-2008, 04:13 AM
I wonder what the young hams of today (many here on QRZ) will be writing in another 40 years about the good old days.
Probably how they remember being legally allowed to use power of 100 watts and even higher, and will be complaining about the 5 watt power limit that will be in effect by 2048, if not lower.
Keep in mind decades ago, you could buy erector sets with sharp metal edges and chemistry sets from Sears that had real chemicals in them. These are considered too dangerous for people today, and if sold, would cause many "dangerous injuries" or lawsuits.
The thought of people being allowed to play with RF transmitters above 5 watts by 2048 seems improbable.
ka5piu
02-24-2008, 11:13 AM
Hello.
I like to play with danger, thus I have things that run on voltages, like 600 and above.
Modern rigs are amazing, and much safer.
Gone are the AC-DC radios of old, not just for the hams, but all across the board.
Now, 3 prong plugs and sockets are the norm, and electrical safety is all but taken for granted.
But, before the transistor,,,.
N8CPA
02-24-2008, 12:28 PM
My first CW QSO at home was done on a transmitter someone else had built and given to me when he bought a super duper Heathkit transceiver--I don't remember the model number. He kept the companion receiver of the transmitter kit. So I used my DX-160 SW receiver.
I must have been a Novice. I had strung a wire antenna between rafters in my attic and homebrewed a transmatch, using an oatmeal box as a coil form and the tuning capacitor of a canibalized clock radio. The alleged coil was taped to the chasis of the clock radio. And everything was crammed onto a small utility table top. And at some point the QSO, my knuckles bumped the chasis of the clock radio tuner. I don't call if the noise I heard then came from my headphones or my vocal cords.
I didn't attempt another HF QSO until I had my own transceiver, and an outside antenna coupled by a transmatch designed and built by someone who had a real clue.
K8YZK
02-24-2008, 01:45 PM
"I bet you'd take about 1 day of that and come back here to today yelling, kicking and screaming."
I enjoy the newer radios, but I also like my Drake TR4, and I have used it more then my newer radios at times (TT Jupiter,TS-570S,IC-703+). So not quite an accurate statement in my case and probably a lot others.
Kurt
K8YZK
DUDE... My primary rig is a PRO III. I also have a 746 PRO as a backup rig. I'm not complaining about anything. I'm an EE and helped develop a lot of technology while working at Harris in the 70's an 80's that you take for granted. I think your POed because this is one dicussion you can't contribute anything to. :mad: (We need an Icon with baby tears)
Now, hitch up your pampers, crawl back into your playpen and let the big guys talk about radio....:)
Well put.
The first Ham receiver I was exposed to was an old National NC-303.
I've worked DXCC with a Kenwood TS520. 80% of those without the outboard VFO or 400Hz Inrad filter I added later. Still got the rig and still running on the original finals. My uncle has the Collins twins which I've listened to, and my cousin has the Drake twins which I've used and want badly.
The things these modern rigs can do are amazing though. With the current technology the limiting factor to how good your receiver can be is how good the firmware is. We've got rigs today with noise floors 10-20dB below atmospheric noise that also have way better selectivity and strong signal handling characterisitics than anything that came before.
Thanks I'll keep that in mind next time I feel the heat. I just don't understand why some people get mentally irregular when someone posts something beyond their comprehention.
You're wrong for making them feel bad about their own lack of ability to understand. You're not being PC. Every post must have a "participation trophy" feeling to it...
How many remember running a separate receiver and transmitter and trying to spot a Kc away from the DX without messing up the recieve, then tune the transmitter then go for it.
Check. (Also remember tuning around a crystal frequency.)
Took some time and you had to think about what you were doing. Seems like now you just center the bandscope and use a mouse to point and click and presto, you're there.
I don't do that NOW; why bother with a computer when the XIT has its own display?
How many remember having a reciever that didn't have a notch filter.
Check! Not all do even now. Like my FT817.
How many remember when noise blankers were hardly effective except for certain kinds of noise.
You mean like my FT817? (grin)
Lastly, how many remember having a rig with crystal phasing control to adjust the selectivity.
Got that T shirt too. SX71 anyone? R388? R274? Though as I recall, phasing didn't adjust selectivity, but frequency.
Here's to the "good old days". Thank GOD they're gone.
Added in edit: I have an HQ100A (Q multiplier added) Johnson Viking Adventurer and Heath VF-1. One day I'll try 'em again, maybe.
Cortland
KA5S
AE6IP
02-24-2008, 09:50 PM
It's all a matter of perspective, I guess. The "radio" I'm working on getting shippable now has five receivers, three transmitters, four processors, two additional dsps, a video camera, a keyboard, USB and an SD-card interface. and it all fits in a device with the profile of a credit card and the thickness of a quarter deck of cards.
After a day of debugging ip handoff between the gsm and the wifi while wondering what to do about keeping the gps epemeris from going whack because the assist is now coming from a different server and how to keep the bt audio in sync with the video playback, I like to unwind with a couple of hours of headset time on a simple IC756 pro II. None of this modern radio stuff for me when I'm engaged in the hobby!