KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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What would Wayne do?

Posted: 23 Dec 2015 05:30 PM PST
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/kb6nu...m_medium=email

What technologies do you think that Wayne Green would be telling us to get
involved with today?

Wayne Green was a crackpotbut he was a great one.

For those of you who arent as old as I am, Wayne Green, W2NSD, was not only
the publisher of 73 Magazine, but also the founder of ByteÂ*and other PC
magazines in the early days of personal computing. In 73, he would write
these long, rambling editorials. Often, he would take the ARRL to task,
criticizing what he thought to be some lunk-headed policy or another.

Just as often, hed be encouraging hams to take up some new technology. He
was, for example, one of the guys driving hams to set up repeater systems.

He would often exhort hams to get started in their own technology-related
business. I remember one column where he urged hams to get involved in the
home-security business. And, of course, when personal computers became
popular, he wrote that hams should think about getting into that business.
His reasoning was that our knowledge of electronics would stand us in good
stead in those businesses.

Today, I think that he would be telling us to get more involved in with
technologies like the Internet of Things,Â*WiFi, or whateverÂ*other wireless
technology is coming down the pike. Wireless is the key word here. These
networking technologies are based on good, old radio, and who better to
push these technologies forward than guys like us who understand radio.

This point was brought home to me last week as I was interviewing an
executive of a wireless company for an article that Im writing. He said to
me that many of the companies he works with are taking a software-centric
view to their wireless products. They simply use the reference designs
provided by the wireless chip makers and expect those designs to work
flawlessly in their products.

While they often do, he gave me anÂ*example where simply using the reference
designÂ*was a colossal failure. In one case, he said, the company mounted
the board inside a metal enclosure. Since the antenna was part of the
printed-circuit board, the enclosure acted like a shield and the device had
little or no range.

He went on to say that he thought that there was a real shortage of
experienced RF guys in the wireless industry. Does that sound like an
opportunity to you? It does to me. Im going to make like Wayne Green here
and exhort all you guys to get out there and take advantage of it.

This is not only a business opportunity, but a way for amateur radio
operators to fulfill a couple of the purposes of amateur radio, as set
forth in Part 97.1 of the amateur radio regulations. Part 97.1(b) says that
one of the purposes of the Amateur Radio Service is Continuation and
extension of the amateurs proven ability to contribute to the advancement
of the radio art. According to Part 97.1(d), another purpose of the Amateur
Radio Service is Expansion of the existing reservoir within the amateur
radio service of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts.

Lets do it!

The post What would Wayne do? appeared first on KB6NUs Ham Radio Blog.

On Thu, 24 Dec 2015 12:06:05 EST,
(KB6NU via
rec.radio.amateur.moderated Admin) wrote:

Often, he [Wayne Green, W2NSD] would take the ARRL to task,
criticizing what he thought to be some lunk-headed policy or another.

He was one of the, if not THE, harshest critic of the League, but he
was always a paid-up member of the League, giving him standing to do
that. Many times he was right!

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

On 12/25/2015 1:49 PM, Phil Kane wrote:
On Thu, 24 Dec 2015 12:06:05 EST,
(KB6NU via
rec.radio.amateur.moderated Admin) wrote:

Often, he [Wayne Green, W2NSD] would take the ARRL to task,
criticizing what he thought to be some lunk-headed policy or another.

He was one of the, if not THE, harshest critic of the League, but he
was always a paid-up member of the League, giving him standing to do
that. Many times he was right!

Yep, Wayne was usually right about ham radio issues. I first started
reading 73 when the League was pushing Incentive Licensing in the 1960s.
Wayne said that it would be bad, and it was indeed disastrous -- it did
help the League sell license manuals, but a slew of ham equipment
vendors tanked within three years. He also pushed transistors when the
League was still pushing tubes.

He was a total crackpot on some other issues, and grew worse with age.
But he was never dull.

I suspect that if he were still around and running 73, he might be
looking for articles on software-defined radio, weak signal DSP, and
other ways to do actual hammy things using current component technology.