Thanks in part to a do-it-yourself movement, amateur radio is experiencing a revival.

[Karl W4KRL]

http://urgentcomm.com/blog/amateur-radio-experiences-diy-renaissance

 

By David Sumner

 

When amateurs began experimenting with radio more than a century ago, they
had no choice but to build everything they needed. Some went on to become
successful entrepreneurs, selling their creations to fellow hobbyists who
were more interested in operating radios than in constructing them. Others
built their own receivers and transmitters either from economic necessity or
for the fun and satisfaction of being able to say, "I did it myself."

 

After World War II, the market was flooded with surplus electronic
components that could be bought in bulk for less than the cost of
manufacture. The Heath Company parlayed these riches into a successful
business by designing kits that could be built at home by anyone with simple
tools and a soldering iron.

 

Step-by-step instructions virtually eliminated the risk of failure. No one
embraced Heathkits more enthusiastically than the amateur-radio community.
At the time, electronic manufacturing still involved point-to-point wiring
and was very labor intensive, so hams could buy a kit for less than the cost
of an equivalent factory-assembled unit and - as a bonus - experience the
joy of putting it together. Other companies also offered kits, but Heathkit
is virtually synonymous with the era.

 

The advent of solid-state devices, printed circuit boards, and automatic
parts insertion removed the price advantage that kits enjoyed. By the time
the Heath Company closed its doors in 1992, most amateur-radio equipment was
being manufactured in Japan.

 

But Heathkit's demise did not spell the end of home construction in amateur
radio. Anyone who has ever made a two-way radio contact with simple
equipment they built on their own workbench or kitchen table will tell you
that it's a thrilling experience. One of the many thriving subcultures in
amateur radio is the QRP community, named for the international Morse code
signal for "decrease power." QRPers pride themselves on being able to
communicate all over the world with less than 5 watts of transmitter power,
often with homemade gear. Their clever equipment designs - offered as kits
by clubs and small businesses - have led to a renaissance in kit building.
There are so many kits available from so many suppliers that, if you set out
to build them all, you would never finish!

 

Today, the fruits of a kit-builder's labors can be slipped into a backpack,
along with a battery and a roll of wire for a day of hiking, with space left
over for lunch. At a nice spot along the trail, one end of the wire gets
tossed into a tree and the other is connected to the radio for a couple of
hours of surfing the ionosphere in search of contacts with other hams near
and far. You might (or might not, depending on where you are) be able to get
a signal on your smartphone, but it is truly liberating to be able to
communicate using equipment you've built yourself - using just the natural
phenomenon of radio-wave propagation and without a trillion dollars' worth
of telecommunications infrastructure.

 

Radio amateurs don't develop radio-communication skills and capabilities
just for ourselves. We want to be of service to our communities and country.
Public service and emergency preparedness are important ways to give back
for the privilege of accessing the radio spectrum. The more we know, the
more capabilities we develop by doing it ourselves, the more valuable we can
be when we're needed. And we will be needed. Society relies ever more
heavily on a fragile telecommunications infrastructure that is susceptible
to overload and outright failure. We can't substitute for all that
infrastructure. But we can communicate, no matter what.

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