New Technology Affordable Radios

[ka5row]

New Technology Affordable Radios:
Ham rig are far more affordable than they were in the 1960's. If ham equipment cost the same today as it did 50 years ago, I would not be a ham and most likely you would not be one either. A Johnson Valiant was about $350 and a good Hallicrafters SX-111 would run $279 for a total of $629 add $25 for a dowkey and $75 for a multiband wire antenna and you have $ 729.. In 1960's dollar that would be a very good used car back then. With the help of a inflation calculator 2007 Dollars the cost would be a whopping $5132.01 in today's dollar. There are several makes and models under $1000 in today's market . Many more around $300 to $400 in good used condition.
So yes Technology has given me the opportunity to be a ham.

[KI4NGN]

New Technology Affordable Radios:
Ham rig are far more affordable than they were in the 1960's. If ham equipment cost the same today as it did 50 years ago, I would not be a ham and most likely you would not be one either. A Johnson Valiant was about $350 and a good Hallicrafters SX-111 would run $279 for a total of $629 add $25 for a dowkey and $75 for a multiband wire antenna and you have $ 729.. In 1960's dollar that would be a very good used car back then. With the help of a inflation calculator 2007 Dollars the cost would be a whopping $5132.01 in today's dollar. There are several makes and models under $1000 in today's market . Many more around $300 to $400 in good used condition.
So yes Technology has given me the opportunity to be a ham.
Myself and most others will agree with you about prices and what you get for your dollar, but there are some who will argue that we're getting ripped off.

However I have to point out that one of the huge advantages of being a ham over any other radio service is that you are also free to make your own: you don't have to buy one off the shelf, meaning that the opportunity to be a ham has always been there.

Mike

[K8YZK]

When you did the calc's did you take into account the difference in pay that the workers received? I remember my parents struggling to make a $100 mortage payment in the early 60's and my dad worked for GM.

All-in-all I think that they were not any cheaper or more expensive then today. A KWM2A was out of my league then and a FT-9000 is out of my league now. I will have to make due with my Jupiter or TS-570.

73
Kurt

[WA6MHZ]

The advent of Robotics and SMT has made radios, such as HTs quite cheap. Remember back in the Hallicrafters days, they had to have people sitting in assembly lines wiring a radio, so that it might take many days to complete. Todays SMT Pick and Place machines crank out dozens of boards per minute, with only minimal hand assembly and test required. ATE even does the alignment using digital pots and PLD logic arrays. So thats why you can buy a new 2M HT for under $100!

[n8yx]

The advent of Robotics and SMT has made radios, such as HTs quite cheap. Remember back in the Hallicrafters days, they had to have people sitting in assembly lines wiring a radio, so that it might take many days to complete. Todays SMT Pick and Place machines crank out dozens of boards per minute, with only minimal hand assembly and test required. ATE even does the alignment using digital pots and PLD logic arrays. So thats why you can buy a new 2M HT for under $100!

Try to fix that HT when it breaks.

[KI4NGN]

Try to fix that HT when it breaks.
Not worth fixing it...throw it away and get a new one. :)

[AG3Y]

YX is absolutely correct. Today's radios, love 'em or hate 'em, are made to be thrown away, not repaired! Combine that fact with the "whisker issue" concerning non-lead solder, and you have a situation in which most stuff that is being built today has a planned obsolescece lifespan of probably well under 10 years!

I am regularly using a radio that is at least 25 years old, and many others are using genuine "boat-anchors" over twice that age. There will be very few that can make that claim in the years to come.

Enjoy your "rice boxes" while you can, because they are certain NOT to last as long as the devices built in years gone by.

73, Jim

[WA6MHZ]

Try to fix that HT when it breaks.

Actually, I CAN fix that HT and frequently do, as I have SMT Skills and rework tools available here at work to remove and replace these parts. I recently fixed a Kenwood HT that had been blown away by overvoltage, but had to come up with substitute parts from Digikey to replace the Japanese ones. Since I work in the industry that does SMT, it is easy for me, but would be a complete impossibility for most hams at home. ICs, for example, cannot be removed by solderwick as the traces would be lifted. I use a hot air pencil and rotate the hot stream around the IC leads until the solder melts. Then I can flick off the IC with a tweezers. But the biggest problem of fixing these HTs is parts availability. I suppose you could order them from Japan, but it would be pricey and take a long time to come in. The key is to have an excellent Service manual like Icom and Kenwood make. Yaesu has a few too, Alinco is very flaky on good SMs.

[n8yx]

Actually, I CAN fix that HT and frequently do, as I have SMT Skills and rework tools available here at work to remove and replace these parts.

As can (and do) I...but I'll wager the majority of folks reading this do not, and cannot.


But the biggest problem of fixing these HTs is parts availability. I suppose you could order them from Japan, but it would be pricey and take a long time to come in. The key is to have an excellent Service manual like Icom and Kenwood make. Yaesu has a few too, Alinco is very flaky on good SMs.

You'll only order them for so long, especially in the case of ASICs or VLSI devices. After which time your DOA IC7800 has just been transformed into a $10K doorstop, with no hope of repair. That is, unless you can find one for parts on ePay - which itself won't be very likely in the short term.

[KI4NGN]

YX is absolutely correct. Today's radios, love 'em or hate 'em, are made to be thrown away, not repaired! Combine that fact with the "whisker issue" concerning non-lead solder, and you have a situation in which most stuff that is being built today has a planned obsolescece lifespan of probably well under 10 years!

I am regularly using a radio that is at least 25 years old, and many others are using genuine "boat-anchors" over twice that age. There will be very few that can make that claim in the years to come.

Enjoy your "rice boxes" while you can, because they are certain NOT to last as long as the devices built in years gone by.

73, Jim
I agree with you 100% Jim, but there is another side to that coin: the devices we use now may not be meant to last as long, but at the same time, given a reasonable life (a few years), by the time they break, where is technology at that point?

Certainly not all, but with the tech advances made over that time, many are ready to move on to newer and more capable hardware. Some end up with a still working unit that collects dust, or one that's broken and tossed away.

Either way, many move on to the newer technology.

Mike

[WB2WIK]

Remember components are much cheaper nowadays, too.

Back in the 50s-60s-70s most of the parts were American-made and they had leads, which involves costly materials like copper. Most of the components doing those same jobs nowadays are made in China and other very low-cost (labor rate and waste disposal) regions of the world, use almost no precious materials at all, and cost about 1/100th what their predecessor discrete parts did. Today I can buy a reel of 5000 transistors for $30, which is six tenths of one cent each. There weren't any "penny" parts in the 50s, 60s or 70s.

And a single microcircuit can almost run an entire transceiver today. FPGAs rule, are very cheap and programmable, and can replace a whole circuit board full of parts from 1970. Software takes cost to develop, but once developed, costs nothing to reproduce forever. So, where an old design may have used 200 parts and two PCBs (or equivalent in vacuum tube circuits, transformers, filters, etc), today's design may use one or two ASICs and that's the whole "guts" of the rig. "DSP," the buzzword of the 21st Century, doesn't add cost to rigs, it reduces cost because once stuff is digital it's easier and faster to control than analog stuff.

Everything has come down in cost except very raw materials like aluminum, steel, plastic resins and paint, and packaging materials like cardboard and foam. Those items have actually risen in cost over the years, but they represent a small part of a "rig's" cost so we can almost ignore them.

WB2WIK/6

[KA4DPO]

I have to disagree with you a little Steve. I used to shop the surplus stores in Santa Ana and Costa Mesa fairly often in the 60s. While the cost to manufacture parts was surely higher the surplus parts were dirt cheap. Tens of Millions of electrolytic capacitos, resistors, and every other radio part you can think of were made during WWII and they sold for pennies as surplus.

[KI4NGN]

I have to disagree with you a little Steve. I used to shop the surplus stores in Santa Ana and Costa Mesa fairly often in the 60s. While the cost to manufacture parts was surely higher the surplus parts were dirt cheap. Tens of Millions of electrolytic capacitos, resistors, and every other radio part you can think of were made during WWII and they sold for pennies as surplus.
Yep, electrolytics that were at least 20 years old. They were pennies for a reason. :)

[ab9lz]

Try to fix that HT when it breaks.

SMT's are much much (much) less likely to break in the first place, especially with the rough treatment that HT's are subject to.

73 m/4

[WB2WIK]

I have to disagree with you a little Steve. I used to shop the surplus stores in Santa Ana and Costa Mesa fairly often in the 60s. While the cost to manufacture parts was surely higher the surplus parts were dirt cheap. Tens of Millions of electrolytic capacitos, resistors, and every other radio part you can think of were made during WWII and they sold for pennies as surplus.

::I don't know of any reputable manufacturer who uses surplus parts, though! True, as hams we can do whatever we wish, but the commercial manufacturers didn't use surplus parts anywhere I know of. I worked for Clegg in NJ as a kid, and not only wouldn't he use surplus parts, but he used to pay extra for premium components with silver plated leads, gold plated terminals, all PTFE insulated wiring, etc. Stuff cost "a lot."

Nowadays, passives and small actives cost much less than one cent each, brand new, with a factory warranty!

73

Steve WB2WIK/6

[WA6MHZ]

Steve, wonder if you know someone named R. D. Milligan from Clegg. He seems to be very connected to Clegg as he buys everything that has a CLegg name on it, regardless of the price. Not an average collector, so it seems he might have worked there.

[ve4mm]

New Technology Affordable Radios:
Ham rig are far more affordable than they were in the 1960's. If ham equipment cost the same today as it did 50 years ago, I would not be a ham and most likely you would not be one either. A Johnson Valiant was about $350 and a good Hallicrafters SX-111 would run $279 for a total of $629 add $25 for a dowkey and $75 for a multiband wire antenna and you have $ 729.. In 1960's dollar that would be a very good used car back then. With the help of a inflation calculator 2007 Dollars the cost would be a whopping $5132.01 in today's dollar. There are several makes and models under $1000 in today's market . Many more around $300 to $400 in good used condition.
So yes Technology has given me the opportunity to be a ham.

I agree 100%

My 1st rig in 1983 was a used Yaesu FT101E for $500.00

25 years later.............$500.00 for a new ICOM IC718.

Ham Radio was seen as an expensive hobby in the old days.

73

Mike

[WB2WIK]

Steve, wonder if you know someone named R. D. Milligan from Clegg. He seems to be very connected to Clegg as he buys everything that has a CLegg name on it, regardless of the price. Not an average collector, so it seems he might have worked there.

::Nope, no Milligan worked there when I was there, which was '67-70.

The only R.D. Milligan with an American callsign is:

MILLIGAN, ROBERT D, KI4MB (Advanced)
6608 N 18TH ST
ARLINGTON, VA 22205
Previous call sign: KA4PNG
Previous license class: General
Licensee ID: L00822531
FRN: 0010256337
Issue Date: Mar 01, 2004
Expire Date: May 24, 2014
Date of last Change: Mar 01, 2004 (License TIN Added)

That's obviously from the FCC data base. I don't recall anybody by that name at Clegg.

I still have a few Clegg prototypes after all these years. Ed was my neighbor and a very nice guy and gave away protos to "kids" who were hams and needed gear more than money. I have an original Clegg Climaster and one of the first (prototype) FM-27's ever made, from about 1970. I used to have (but sold many, many years ago) the Zeus and Interceptor B, Venus, Apollo, Thor-VI, 22'er, 22'er MKII, 66'er, 99'er, and an SS-1R receiver with the motor drive tuning (from Squires-Sanders). None of that stuff cost me anything, I got it from Ed just for doing extra work there.

Most of it was exemplary equipment with great modulation quality.

My college professor for "Electronic Circuits 101" or something (a zillion years ago) was a ham who was a great Clegg fan, and his name was Dr. Weiss. His call was WA2GCM, and he used the phonetics, "Great Clegg Modulation."

We spent two days in lecture discussing what Clegg did to make his rigs sound so good, and that was very interesting.

WB2WIK/6

[w7lpn]

I love my 857D, & so far so good, but I would part with it a long time before I would the IC-730. The rugged ol' ICOM just feels solid and reliable. :cool:

[KA4DPO]

::I don't know of any reputable manufacturer who uses surplus parts, though! True, as hams we can do whatever we wish, but the commercial manufacturers didn't use surplus parts anywhere I know of. I worked for Clegg in NJ as a kid, and not only wouldn't he use surplus parts, but he used to pay extra for premium components with silver plated leads, gold plated terminals, all PTFE insulated wiring, etc. Stuff cost "a lot."

Nowadays, passives and small actives cost much less than one cent each, brand new, with a factory warranty!

73

Steve WB2WIK/6

I didn't mean to imply that manufacturers used surplus parts they would not have, nor would they now for obvious reasons. What I meant was that I used them and could build or modify equipment very inexpensively. Building and modifying equipment today can be an expensive proposition depending on the scope and complexity of the project.


Note to KI4NGN: They were 20 years old and I never got a dud. They were Mil Spec parts and were designed to last. The quality of those components was amazing.

[k8jd]

I just put a MFJ Cub kit together (works great) for $99, don't recall anything from Heathkit that would transcieve a signal for that price. That must be about $30 in1961 (when I got a novice ticket) money and in '61 I didn't have anywhere near that money.

[AC0FP]

Actually, I CAN fix that HT and frequently do, as I have SMT Skills and rework tools available here at work to remove and replace these parts. I recently fixed a Kenwood HT that had been blown away by overvoltage, but had to come up with substitute parts from Digikey to replace the Japanese ones. Since I work in the industry that does SMT, it is easy for me, but would be a complete impossibility for most hams at home. ICs, for example, cannot be removed by solderwick as the traces would be lifted. I use a hot air pencil and rotate the hot stream around the IC leads until the solder melts. Then I can flick off the IC with a tweezers. But the biggest problem of fixing these HTs is parts availability. I suppose you could order them from Japan, but it would be pricey and take a long time to come in. The key is to have an excellent Service manual like Icom and Kenwood make. Yaesu has a few too, Alinco is very flaky on good SMs.

My company does not make amateur radio HT's but with that said we do have a number of amateur radio operators as customers.

"MHZ" is right in saying present day radios can be repaired for some of the failures one might expect. However, in our case the radios are designed not to fail.

Devices which might fail because some amateur was playing around with the radio and caused an "over voltage" situation, by using an unauthorized power supply, might be the final PA or driver transistor. Those with SMD expertise could purchase the NEC replacement parts from Mouser or Digi-Key. OP-Amp replacements are usually readily available and cheap. Of course, if the "DIE bonded" microcontroller is blown you throw the radio away.

73,

Frank:)

[WA6MHZ]

::Nope, no Milligan worked there when I was there, which was '67-70.

The only R.D. Milligan with an American callsign is:

MILLIGAN, ROBERT D, KI4MB (Advanced)
6608 N 18TH ST
ARLINGTON, VA 22205
Previous call sign: KA4PNG
Previous license class: General
Licensee ID: L00822531
FRN: 0010256337
Issue Date: Mar 01, 2004
Expire Date: May 24, 2014
Date of last Change: Mar 01, 2004 (License TIN Added)

That's obviously from the FCC data base. I don't recall anybody by that name at Clegg.

I still have a few Clegg prototypes after all these years. Ed was my neighbor and a very nice guy and gave away protos to "kids" who were hams and needed gear more than money. I have an original Clegg Climaster and one of the first (prototype) FM-27's ever made, from about 1970. I used to have (but sold many, many years ago) the Zeus and Interceptor B, Venus, Apollo, Thor-VI, 22'er, 22'er MKII, 66'er, 99'er, and an SS-1R receiver with the motor drive tuning (from Squires-Sanders). None of that stuff cost me anything, I got it from Ed just for doing extra work there.

Most of it was exemplary equipment with great modulation quality.

My college professor for "Electronic Circuits 101" or something (a zillion years ago) was a ham who was a great Clegg fan, and his name was Dr. Weiss. His call was WA2GCM, and he used the phonetics, "Great Clegg Modulation."

We spent two days in lecture discussing what Clegg did to make his rigs sound so good, and that was very interesting.

WB2WIK/6

Thanks, Steve
that must be the guy then. He has been buying all these Clegg FM-DX rigs that come on, must have 20 or 30 of them by now. I have a nearly complete Clegg collection but am missing the CLimaster and FM-DX. Also the pricey 6 meter heavyweights like the Thor, Venus and Apollo. Those sure were excellent radios. These FM-DX rigs are nothing special, and I remember turning one down at HRO for $35 because I thought it was too expensive. I should have nabbed that as RDMILLI has paid around $70-$110 for each one! He puts in a Nuclear bid that no one in the world will outbid as the radio just isn't worth that much and always wins. So I am still looking for the FM-DX, not that uncommon but a nice Non-PL rig anyway. Would be good for Packet and APRS.
That must have been very exciting to work at such a wonderful place and see all those historical rigs actually in construction. At the time it doesn't mean as much.

I worked for a company called HULL, which made marine radios for large ships. The chief engineer, who was also a Ham, was convinced to make one of the new radios Ham compatible too, and the radio was put into production. It was the Hull 5150SSB, a 0-30Mhz AM/CW/SSB rig that really did work nice, but they didn't sell very many. There were some critical flaws in it that made it a poor Marine radio (the harsh salt air enviroment would corrode the PCBs that weren't coated!) but an OK ham radio. I even got to take some down to Ecuador in 1994 on an expedition to search for the lost Inca gold. Didn't hear about that? Thats because they didn't find it! But that was exciting just the same.
a few years later, the company went belly up and they had a fire sale on all the radios and equipment. Thats where I got my Yaesu FT-736R, Astron PS's, Loads of test equipment and 6 or 7 of these Hull 5150s. There are probably less than a 100 in the world and I have 7! So I need to keep them pristine until time makes them invaluable, and I can sell them for several thousand apiece. Think I will have to wait a long long time. Maybe my son will make the money on them.

[n8yx]

I have a nearly complete Clegg collection but am missing the CLimaster and FM-DX. These FM-DX rigs are nothing special, and I remember turning one down at HRO for $35 because I thought it was too expensive. I should have nabbed that as RDMILLI has paid around $70-$110 for each one! So I am still looking for the FM-DX, not that uncommon but a nice Non-PL rig anyway.

I wish you would have said something prior to me going to Dayton...was one there for around $20, IIRC...

[WA6MHZ]

I wish you would have said something prior to me going to Dayton...was one there for around $20, IIRC...

Rats, missed it! But thats about what they are worth. Why RDmilli wants to pay over $100 is a mystery!

[KC6ZLV]

I think the transceivers are an absolute bargain when compared to what was available in the 70's.

Looking here in the August 1978 issue of Ham Radio Horizons:

List pricing:
Kenwood TS-600 6m multi-mode transceiver - $699.00 (analog dial, 15 watts PEP)
Kenwood TS-700SP 2m multi-mode transceiver - $729.00.
Kenwood TR-7400A 2m synthesized FM transceiver w/CTCSS (CTCSS was usually an option then) - $399.00
Regency HR-312 2m FM mobile 12 ch crystal-controlled $269.00

Kenwood TS-820S 160-10m - $1098.00
Kenwood TS-520S 80-10m - $739.00

Going back to 1973, Ham Radio Magazine:

ICOM IC-22 22ch 2m FM mobile - $289.00 (looks like a CB radio)