The AM Forum

ARRL Launches new "Do It Yourself" campaign


http://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-launches-new-diy-campaign

What a sad little video.


It includes a death-watch style of wording, "the last place" where we can build our own gear, and the examples don't really say much about crafting something to an end result.

Alan Pitts, one of the paid staffers at the ARRL, said AM homebrew was not considered, and incorrectly said there was no mode-specific activity shown.  The weak signal CW demonstration is about halfway in.

Weak signal is for achievement-counting, scientists, and experimenters. Nothing wrong with it.

I'm guessing the example shown was because it was simple and inexpensive. I was not excited by the dour pall cast over home-building.

Weak signal work is fine by me too, even if I'm not into it. But what Pitts was trying to palm off in his response to me is that the examples were mode-neutral, and that's not really the case. 

CW was presented, as were the "digital" modes, and there was plenty of room for a homebrew station (that happens to be on AM) to have been included.

But the script and the video elements both need a lot of work, so maybe it's best not to be associated with this particular production.

Well at least they are trying to encourage building and experimenting.  That's much better than a "radio sport" where the playing field is tilted towards people that can spend thousands on ready-made equipment. 

I'd give it a C rating.  Kinda hokey, like that ham radio song they play in the background (but at least they didn't show an excerpt from the video of the dude in top-hat and tails, hanging off the top of the tower, using no climbing or safety equipment). And as far as hokiness goes, I'd put it on par with most of the "educational" material and textbooks I had at my disposal at school when I used to teach.

If you listen carefully, they actually do use the word "homebrew" one time in the narration. Of course there's the proverbial novelty QRP transmitter built in a cat-food tin, to stay on par with to-day's QST construction and technical articles.

Without dwelling on specific modes, they could have started out with a few of those small beginner's projects, but then have gone on to show some REAL homebrew masterpieces to demonstrate what experienced hams are capable of doing after they have been with the hobby for a while.  Maybe a reasonably complex receiver with multiple circuit boards and even have included a shot of a homebrew transmitter with a big tube glowing, a couple of QRO class E transmitters along with a strapping antenna tuner or two.

I'm not so sure the video will make much of an impression on the audience they are trying to target.

I'm sure that would make a big impression on someone starting out in the DIY environment  :P

Yes, it might. I find most new folks I run into want to build something and this at least shows there is building going on. Showing them my stuff might scare them! When they got a little experience it might not "scare" but "inspire" instead. We all crawled before we walked.

But I agree, from my perspective it looks a bit lame. But then I and may of us are spoiled by our familiarity with homebrewing.

Bill

Oh ya, a little Altoid mint tin with a few chips on a breadboard and 9 v. battery is sooooo exciting!  Maybe have a LED lit up!   ::)

But a humming plate iron, glowing 866As pulsing with modulation, lit up filaments and anodes in chimneys with blowers going....how dull and mundane.... :-*

For a beginner in DIY, probably cool stuff. Sort of like my first crystal radio but with no lights.


Again, for a DIY beginner, probably not much of an impression. Heck, even I'm not impressed with pulsing 866As. I got rid of mine years ago.

Occasionally I have had kids visit my shack.  Most of them looked with astounded expressions on their faces, and said all that stuff looked really cool, even though I'm sure most of it was way over their heads.

And I don't even have a computer in the shack.  I did show them the modulation monitor scope in action, though.

OTOH, when I used to teach in high school, I never could stir up any interest in an amateur radio club. The abstract concept of an unseen technically-oriented hobby didn't interest the students in the slightest.  Had I had to-day's technology, I might have been able to make a better impression by showing some videos of my station and a compilation of some of the heavy metal AR videos from YouTube and elsewhere.

But schools are now so obsessed with high-stakes multiple-guess standardised achievement testing that there is no time for things like amateur radio clubs.  Our local district is even pushing to curtail high school physical education to gain more "academic time", despite all the current childhood obesity concerns. 

Pictures of those things, time-adjusted for past tech, as found in an old RSGB handbook in the school library when I was 10 are what made a big impression on someone starting out in the DIY environment here. Even if the projects are for little stuff, always show the big stuff and have those articles available.

I guess with the price of printing and postage going up,  'DIY' is one letter less than "hmbr".  Gotta save money.

Next year the charge will be "Do It" (DI).