"During the first fifty years of the twentieth century, ham radio went from being an experiment to virtually an art form. Because of the few government restrictions and the low monetary investment required, the concept of ham radio appealed to various people. More than just a simple hobby, however, ham radio required its operators to understand radio theory, be able to trace a schematic and know how to build a transmitter and receiver with whatever material they might have available."
A great pity that's no longer true to-day. Thanks to commercial interests and the instant gratification "gimme" attitude of modern society, mainstream ham radio has declined into a "consumer" activity, that appeals largely to retirees with disposable income. Ham operators no longer have to really understand any radio theory to pass the token examinations with published question-answer pools. Many of to-day's newcomers with Extra Class tickets can't even figure out how to construct a simple dipole, let alone trace a schematic. (Just check out some of the questions asked in the Q-A forum on QRZ.com or on e-ham.) Building something from scratch using available material is out of the question for the vast majority of to-day's crowd.
One of the few exceptions to the above, but by far the most prominent, lies within the AM community, where genuine amateur radio lives on as both a technically oriented hobby and an art form.
Don k4kyv
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