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July 7th 04, 10:05 PM

"No Spam " No wrote in message ...
On Fri, 2 Jul 2004 21:31:54 UTC, Doug wrote:

On 1 Jul 2004 06:42:36 -0700, (N2EY) wrote:

Wayne was and is full of it.

Even if that isn't a factor, the weird, useless stuff that people
collect, pottery, knick-knacks, wood furniture, carvings, Hummels,
and so on, if an HT-32B appreciates as much as that stuff, it would
be worth tens of thousands of dollars.

But it won't because the market for an HT-32B is far smaller.

I think most "collectors" only collect what the appraisers and
antique sales people tell them to collect.

That's true in some cases, not true in others. But it's certainly a
valid point that at least *some* collectors are more interested in the
fact that something is worth $X or is considered "rare", rather than
its intrinsic value.

IOW, would they still like it if it was worth almost nothing?

Watch a few episodes of
the antique shows on PBS. That junque is genuinely weird.

I love that show. Besides the *smokin'* new host, the incredible
prices attached to some things are always a source of amazement. I
mean - a table lamp made in 1906 that's worth $120,000? A small table
from the early 19th century worth almost $500,000?

Compare it to a fine HQ-150 or a Johnson Valiant.

One *big* difference is that we'd get the HQ-150 or Valiant and put
them on the air, not just look at them.

In fact, I find it's starting to work the other way with me. One thing
I used to love about BA'ing was getting some rig or other for a low
low price, fixing it up, putting it on the air, having a ball with it
and then eventually passing it on to somebody else. And if I blew
something up, or couldn't fix it, no big loss.

But when they are fetching prices higher than new, it's a whole new
ball game.

Wayne Green has gotten too much credit - mainly from his own self
promotion.

Incentive licensing hardly killed off Amatuer radio or the
manufactorers of the time.

In the early 1960's, Wayne predicted that there would be lots of
Japanese hams.

There already *were* lots of JA hams back then.

When I got on 15 meters as a novice. I was running
a DX-60 with one 15 meter novice crystal and a ZL-special. I used
to work pile ups of JA stations all running 10 watts or some other
strangely low power. It suggested to me that they had an entry
license, perhaps comparable to our Novice that gave them 10 or maybe
it was 15 watts of CW.

They've had four classes of license for years, with the entry class
having no code test. Entry class is QRP but allows a variety of HF
modes. They used a twisted interpretation of the treaty to do it.

In years gone by, many countries required more than passing tests for
a license upgrade. In some cases, construction of receivers and/or
transmitters of a given level of complexity was required, and an oral
examination given on how the set worked. Another element was
requirement of a certain number of stations heard/worked with the
constructed equipment. The old USSR was a big one for that sort of
thing. JA may have done it, too.

I figured that Wayne was right and that the same "hook" that got me
fiddling with antennas, peering into the chassis of my SX-101A
trying to get a little more ooomph out of it, got them too.

The trend was clear early on. Building up the nation's technical and
manufacturing base was a national priority in Japan from VJ day
forward.

Interesting thing about 'prophets' like W2NSD - people remember the
few times when they were right but forget the many many times when
they were not.

I ended up an assembly language and PL/I programmer doing MVS
internals, telecommunications using TCAM, TSO internals.

Later when Japanese electronics took over, I figured that the same
fellows who I worked on 15 meters were now electrical engineers.
That was what Wayne predicted in his rambling editorials in 73
magazine.

Maybe. Ham radio has led many of us to engineering careers, me
included.

But consider this:

Since 1995 the number of Japanese ham stations has been in free fall.
Google up AH0A's website - interesting numbers.

Don't be fooled by the enormous number of JA *operator* licenses -
their operator licenses never expire, so what you see under operator
license totals are the total number of hams that have been licensed in
Japan since 1952. One ham can have as many as four operator licenses.

The important number is the number of *station* licenses, which cost a
fee and have to be renewed each year.

73 de Jim, N2EY