Cbers homebrew more than hams ?

[Spirittalk]

This seems to be fair comment in this cilmate we now live and age of radio we are at.

The cbers who are often reffered to like 'the bottom feeders' of the radio world simply have to homebrew and modify to get on the air !

It seems a shame that many hams learn so much technical information and only put a tiny amount of it into practise.

Is this a fair comment ?

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

I would hardly qualify moving a jumper to get extra channels as modifying. Nor would I consider puting up an A99 on a pole homebrewing. LOL. Where do you see the need for CB'ers to modify and homebrew just to get on the air? Installing noise toys,besides being useless, is not necessary to get on the air.How many modified surpluss rigs have made their way to CB? I just do not see what you are refering too. I have lots of little homebrew gadgets and interfaces in my ham station,not necessary to get me on the air, but they do make being on the air more enjoyable. Now, I am working on a big homebrew/modify project in order to get me on the air,80m particularly.I am working on modifying a 1 Kw commercial AM broadcast transmitter to run on 80m. I just fired it up this week and checked it out. Next step is gutting the PA and driver stages and installing the new components.That is going to take some planning and head scratching as there is very little space to install the new vacuum variable tune and load capacitors.It willbe driven by my Kenwood TS-820S used simply as a carrier frequency generator and will be an actual transmitter not a big amplifier.

 

[Seminoles]

I would hardly qualify moving a jumoer to get extra channels as modifying. Nor would I consider puting up an A99 on a pole homebrewing. LOL. Where do you see the need for CB'ers to modify and homebrew just to get on the air? Installing noise toys,besides being useless, is not necessary to get on the air.How many modified surpluss rigs have made their way to CB? I just do not see what you are refering too. I have lots of little homebrew gadgets and interfaces in my ham station,not necessary to get me on the air, but they do make being on the air more enjoyable. Now, I am working on a big homebrew/modify project in order to get me on the air,80m particularly.I am working on modifying a 1 Kw commercial AM broadcast transmitter to run on 80m. I just fired it up this week and checked it out. Next step is gutting the PA and driver stages and installing the new components.That is going to take some planning and head scratching as there is very little space to install the new vacuum variable tune and load capacitors.It willbe driven by my Kenwood TS-820S used simply as a carrier frequency generator and will be an actual transmitter not a big amplifier.

Now that is what I call real home brew. Brings back memories of the germanium diode.

 

[W5LZ]

Spirittalk,
"Is this a fair comment ?"
I guess it just depends on how you define 'home-brewing'. The most common definition is that you make it yourself rather than buying it ready-made. 'Home-brewing' can also mean assembling a kit unless you get really 'picky' about it. (Then I guess you'd have to make your own capacitors and resistors too?)
Basically it's sort of starting with something very simple (like a tube/transistor maybe?) and adding most of whatever else you need to make it do what it's supposed to do. Starting with something that already works and adding to it, well, I figure that's modifying, not home-brewing. But it's close!
'Home-brewing' is sort of like playing a piano. Nobody starts out playing classical opera, you're @#$ lucky if you can do 'Chopsticks', you know? And since there are VERY few CB radio kits (of any kind) floating around, I sort'a doubt if CB'ers have a 'lock' on home-brewing. Another aspect is that I would expect CB'ers to 'mod' things more than the average ham. Don't know about you, but I don't want any part of rearranging or 'moding' the typical SMT stuff! Grief! I can't even see half of it.
So, do CB'ers do more 'home-brewing' than hams? I don't know, do they?
- 'Doc

And strictly on a personal basis, if I spend ~THAT~ much for a ham radio, I @#$ sure ain't ever gonna do more than 'mod' it! Maybe!

 

[C2]

It is not a fair comment. Look at your environment. How many hams do you think are here bragging about their cap and resistor mods, I mean "engineering updates?"

Anyway, it is all relative.

 

[trash]

Homebrewing from scratch I would agree is not the forte' of the CBer. It might be correct, that CBers would more actively modify their equipment than Hams. The complexity and expense of ham equipment means you have more to learn about and more to lose than breaking a CB.

I cut my teeth on CB. Within 6 months I was actively seeking difficult to modify CB's just for challange. I would often make money on reselling them because others wanted to know the modifications I had made.

I also made a lot of my own antennas, so it came as no supprise to anybody that I had a ham ticket within a year. The delay was caused by a 6 month changeover in our licencing system at the time.

Though with the dumbing down of society, I find there are a lot more "gimme's" and script kiddy hackers that follow instruction to modify their equipment rather than discovering new hacks or designs for themselves. There are no shortage of black box operators on the ham bands too. I notice that there is a larger percentage of hams homebrewing here in Australia compared to the US, but our numbers are so small that we're outnumbered about 10 to 1. With such a small retail market, sometimes homebrewing is the only option. Not ever have I seen a commercially made ATV transmitter sold new or second hand in Australia. It's 100% home brew aspect of ham radio in VK.

An interesting question comes .. when a ham's radio is broken... can he open it up himself and fix it ?
When I got my licence, I made a lot of money off loading a lot of modified CBs that I no longer needed, and they helped pay for a Yaesu FT767 which was one of the top model radios at the time. When I looked at the circuit diagrams, I thought that I would never be able to ever fix anything with it should it ever break. That time did eventually come one year when a nearby tree was woodchipped by lightning and the 767 stopped working correctly. It didn't take long to find the problem and though the radio is overly complex, the block and circuit diagrams make it easy to work with. I've had this radio for 20 years and made many modifications to it. I'm still slowly working away on building a 23cm module for it.

These days electronics and construction aren't the only facets of Ham radio. Somebody who is just interested in social chatting really has no need to modify or build his own equipment.