uk.radio.amateur?

[T i m]

<snip>

For me that first happened with Tandy.

For the hard-core stuff we had Frank Mozer's at Edmonton and I can remember standing in the queue of geezers on a Saturday morning, handing my list over and being told to wait or come back later (depending on how busy they were and how long my list).

See a project in ETI, see if you could order the PCB (you often got one taped to the front for one of the smaller projects), go and get the components from Mozers, build and if it was worth it, case it up with an two part ally case from FM (they used to have a stack on display to choose from). ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Gareth Evans]

With a name like that, do they specialize in RF attenuators? :-)

[whisky-dave]

electronics has changed, yuo can;t do that much with a handful of transitors and asociated componets, now it;s all integrated system. You buy an arduino and spend the next few weeks programing on a laptop. My students have problem connecting tthings together having little idea or relible connections and how bad ones affect the overall system. To get rid of bounce from a switch it's no longer a 555 monostable it's done via a delay in software or machine learning.

Not really it's just moved on to embedded system where you connect pre-made parts together. If you compare the prices of things it's also far cheaper to buy such things ready made than build your own.

[whisky-dave]

We run a course with those in our real-time digital system processing course, about 30 sets of kit, it's a popular course.

[John Rumm]

There is a quite good analysis and of the protracted demise here:

[Nick Odell]

It was a different age. Before Maplin first appeared in Westcliff on Sea there were already several electronic, radio and surplus shops in the neighbourhood. I used to haunt a couple in Westborough Road that looked as if they pre-dated electricity and I think I may still have the unused 3" cathode ray tube I bought from one of them "in case it came in useful."

Nick

[whisky-dave]

In the mid 70s they just had a few shops I had to order from the one in southend IIRC. Then they opened in hammersmith, but it was easier to get to edgeware road and tottenham court road for marshals & henrys radio and quite a few others in one street. Tandy were the most expensive but also the closest to me.

I bought some boards and got loads of DTL chips that worked on 12V. Didn't use them for anything in the end but a real bargin at the time I so I thought. But I did cut one oopen and it still worked and I shone a laser into it which changed the results I was getting which I found exciting.

The times meant stocking remote control cars and teh like. I bought a set that was granny racing as a birthday present for someone. Even at he end theor websire was bad and the basket got emptyied automatical the next day so not much good for us here.

[Gareth Evans]

In Bristol, it was The Radio Shop in 16, Cherry Lane, just off the Gloucester Road and about 100 yards from the Bus Station.

I had a VCR517B CRT; no idea where it went; it was 50 years ago!

[Roger Hayter]

It doesn't seem particularly rude to me. Seems like fair comment and disagreement. Certainly less rude than your original post was to fellow amateurs. If people disagree, why not discuss their views and why you think they are wrong, instead of manufacturing an argument to save having to justify your opinions?

[Gareth Evans]

How rude!

Roger, GW8BFO, old chum, I have observed before that you seem to be obsessed with picking fault with anything and everything that I post to Usenet, so, other than this critique of you, I will not respond.

Except to correct you further, ... Fools' licensees with M3 / M6 / M7 licences are not my fellow amateurs by any stretch of the imagination.

Amateur radio is a technical pursuit and the qualification for a Fools' licence does not even extend to that most elementary of operations of evaluating resistances in parallel or capacitors in series.

5-year-olds, who have been praised for getting such a licence, simply do not have the mathematical skills for such evaluations.

I have been opposed to the dilution of technical standards represented by the Fools' licence scheme and pride myself at never having QSOd with such a licensee.

(For the uninitiated the official name is the Foundation Licence, but when photographs are published of grown men grinning inanely because they have (just?) managed to pass an exam targetted at the 5-year-old, then the epithet of Fools' licence seems more apt)

[RobH]

I was an amateur radio operater until about 5 years or so ago and used to post occasionally in the said NG.

Now I am more into d-i-y electronics, but I don't see a NG for that on Net News. I would like the occasional help with some simple projects I am trying, following youtube vids, but it's back to youtube for that I suppose.

[newshound]

I remember going to Home Radio in Mitcham in the mid 60's to buy four low-noise transistors for my first preamp (at ten bob each).

[Theo]

There was a letter of complaint in Electronics: The Maplin Magazine about moving to more finished electronic products than components, which was dismissed by the MD (I think it was still Doug Simmonds) as that was what the market wanted. This was in about 1991.

Theo

[Gareth Evans]

Try the sci.electronics series of groups.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not always. At one point (late 90s?) they were competitive with the likes of RS. And seemed to be chasing that market. But not for long.

There used to be several shops that sold components round here. All long gone. Maplin lasted longer.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yup - they then moved from that office block in Mitcham to smaller premises in Haydon's Road Wimbledon. But only seemed to be open for counter sales when they felt like it. No use for the likes of me. ;-)

[Roger Hayter]

You might well get useful comments in uk.d-i-y. And, as Gareth Evans says, sci.electronics.* groups are very active.

[RobH]

Thanks, I've subscribed to sci.electronics.basics as that one seems to be the most used and up to date.

My electronic skills are pretty basic now compared to 35 plus years ago when I made my own pcbs using tracing paper etc for radio amateur use.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Gareth Evans has brought this to us :

Soapbox mode again..

Back you go in the filter.

[Gareth Evans]

No soapbox, old man; merely replying to an erroneous statement made by another who raised the topic in the first place.

But thank-you for reproducing the truth so completely.