Frustrated over my new "hobby" of ham radio

Post Reply New Topic

I can't really blame any particular party, just the people in control, I call them, "the powers that be." I do think MAGA does have good intentions, naturally, I don't agree with them 100%, you should not always go 100% on anything really, it is an imperfect world. Socialism has largely failed, you cannot take care of everyone on everything. It is a dilemma though, we know what is wrong, but on the other hand, the paradigm in shifting to a new point, I think those who are on the right don't have all the economic answers either. Sure if this was 50 years ago, it would be more cut and dry but with technology and so forth, we are headed to a new world where we don't really have answers.

I think as a demographic, I try not to pigeonhole, but sometime it is a simpler way or at least a Cliff Notes way to explain some things, I would fall into the group known as the "disaffected." Generally we are basically libertarian/conservative, heck, I'm Mr NRA myself, well very pro-Comstitution, the Democrats don't fit us, the Republicans are a little better generally, but we are not happy with them either. I liked the idea of the Reform Party with the late H. Ross Perot. UBI, some say it is socialism, well, I guess it is or at least call it more of a welfare state idea, but I'm also a pragmatist too, we will have to consider it the way things are going.

I'm like my father, we do believe that the days of the U.S. are numbered and our best days are behind us if we keep going this way.

I do have one theory why we had it so good between 1945 to 2000, although the rot started around 1973 or so, is because after World War II, we were the only major power not affected by the War. Germany and Japan were blown to smithereens, Italy was a basket case, Russia prevailed but got beat up badly, the French were flattened an the UK took one on the nose as well. We were King of the Hill. However, many of those countries after the War rebuilt themselves, Germany, Japan and then later on, Red China and the Asian Tigers, the rest of the world grew up and can compete against us. We also did our share as well, we sat on our laurels. My father worked at a coke plant, a lot of the machines dated from like 1929, the rest of the world rebuilt with 1970's era machines and upward. (West) Germany did not fully recover form WWII until the 1980's and IIRC, the UK paid off it's WWI debt in 2015.

We are sort of at the paradigm like we faced with the old Empire system prior to WWI where we are due for a reshuffle or we blow ourselves up. Where we are headed, I don't know.

Crap, we are hijacking the amateur radio thread, well if this crap happens, hams will be needed to communicate during the crisis.

that is an adept turnaround at least the hams that can build/maintain their own stuff, if the economy collapses.

I've heard of stories during the Great Depression where hams have been known to "borrow" the tubes from the family radio set to run their ham radios. A popular type of tubes then I think was the No. 47.

i remember we had an old tubed sears silvertone spinet organ, it had the good old mellow tube sound. a main power tube of some kind failed and was too expensive for us to fix, so to the goodwill the organ went. i like tube equipment [audio and organs], transistors just can't compare in terms of tone. do ham radio operators have a similar preference for tubes?

I've heard that a lot of audiophiles can tell the difference between tube amplifiers and solid state ones where the tubes are said to sound better. Amateur radio, I'm not sure but I know there are hams who like the old equipment for the history as well as easier to fix. Sear Silvertone was a popular brand, I know J.C. Penney's had their Penncrest brand and later on, their MCS stereo components.

i have an old pair of MCS big box "house rocking" speakers, a competitor to cerwin-vega. not accurate but they did pump out wall-bending amounts of bass. and SET tube amps do have an unmistakable "sweet" sound. very expensive though, nowadays.

I lost my mother in 2013 and lost the house. I forget to take my Sherwood stereo amp with me, it was all tubes, I could kick myself in the"you know where" for that. :p BTW, if you want a real hoot, go to www.radioshackcatalogs.com and www.americanradiohistory.com where they have old catalogs from the past and in the latter, stuff about old radio. It's fascinating.