It seems as though a number of the (slightly?) more respectable denizens of ura have decamped here in response to the almost complete destruction of ura by the infantile despicables. One wonders what the correlation between the decay in that NG is with the introduction of the M3 / M6 / M7 Fools' Licence scheme?
Whatever.
I wonder how many contributors to this NG are still D-I-Y in electronics, or has the miniaturisation and high integration of functionality in today's available chips driven even that aspect of D-I-Y into oblivion?
I followed the advice given on here about setting up and using T-bird's cross-post filter. If cole and fmf are cross-posting here or ukra or wherever, I (and I guess the wiser users of the group) just aren't seeing them....
But do understand that cole has suffered #massivedefeats in both his attempts to get on the UK Usenet committee (no-one had him down as a preference vote, so he came last!) and his much-trumpeted forecast of a Labour victory in the recent General Election being flushed down the pan by the youthquake voters he championed. He also turns 40 this year...
I did 40 years in the electronics industry and the last 20 years of designing it was almost exclusively on the computer with the operation tested by simulation and even on board testing by an on chip virtual logic analyser. This was high end military chip design and fitted to 10+ layer circuit boards with the majority of the components being surface mount and assembled by machine.
The professional software I used to design cost the company I worked for £10k+ per annum per design engineer.
40 years ago my hobby was DIY electronics but it soon became evident that most things I wanted could be purchased much more cheaply "ready made". I still have equipment such as a good quality (second hand) oscilloscope etc but the last time used was around 3 years ago and for some trivial fault finding.
I still do some, but it tends to be for repair rather than building new stuff from scratch these days. (unless you include a bit of interface "glue" style electronics for voltage level shifting of converting single sided / differential drive etc).
The availability of integrated circuits of various kinds has increased the possibilities for DIY many times over. If you are talking about board level repair, then, yes, many people successfully do it. Personally I rarely get beyond replacing failed electrolytic capacitors, but many people do. DIY electonics is flourishing as never before; one just has to learn new techniques.
Not really sure about that one? Hence the likes of Maplin etc going under? And they moved to a web presence pretty early on - but even then moved their core business from DIY electronics.
There is lots of interest in the "maker" space these days - so still DIY electronics at the systems level, but more often than not focussed on the building of solutions from small pre-built subsystems rather than discrete components.
Your post sounds like trolling to me. Posting it here for no apparent reason?? As I have no axe to grind, not being a person who transmits at all, I certainly do not feel the foundation licence is in any way to blame for what you say. There are a lot of responsible people quite happy with ten watts and indeed a few nights ago were working the states on80 metres with better procedures than the old linear wielding old boys.
So bah humbug, blame who you like for whatever you like but do your blaming on the group in your subject line note here. As for electronics as a hobby. It seems to be going down. I can myself no longer do it but one could I think, still do so if one wanted. things like noise phase shifters for noise aerials etc are easy to make with a few fets, after all. Bah Humbug. Brian
I do some still, using a Beaglebone Black SBC with some external interfacing (the DIY and soldering bit) to provide monitoring of battery voltages and a few other things on my boat.
Maplin were expensive for components. Those who were serious about construction used other suppliers. Gradually Maplin changed their focus and lost even the ?rush sales? due to not keeping local stocks.
Maplins lost out by having expensive premises and over staffing. Yes they were expensive, round here we have a small family run business which has been going for decades and is still going strong. The market is still there.
They did not start out that way... in their time they started a revolution - one of the first single stop shops where you could go for all things electronic - at a time where you would have otherwise had to source components from multiple (typically mail order) vendors or back street electronic salvage shops.
The also pioneered e-commerce and online ordering before the internet age; anyone else remember CASHTel (Computer Aided Shopping by Telphone)?
They certainly failed to move with the times, or play to their unique strengths. Their original business model had no need to hundred's of high street shops - so something had to change.
And dodgy accountants and management consultants with the aid of a few venture (or should that be vulture?) capitalists...
Its a shame... not because I miss Maplin of recent times much, but I remember the thrill as a 12 year old walking into the shop in Westcliff (the first and only branch at the time), seeing all the toys on display, watching what made it all tick, with my list of components or tools or whatever in hand. It was almost like a super power - you could buy stuff others could not easily access or hardly even knew existed. (we are talking a time when NiCd rechargeable batteries were new and exciting!)
As happens many times new ownership not realising what they were buying and purchased with borrowed money so the ongoing business also has to services the large debts.
Filling their stores with toys for boys[1] is when they really started to go downhill. It was around the time when the Westcliff shop moved to the other side of the road, followed by opening another large store (often completely devoid of custom) a few miles away in a Southend retail park.
[1] Toys for boys which could be purchased for half the price from other retailers with the help of 60 seconds of Googling
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