Transmission1

Ive packed in ham radio and CB over the years. best Advice I can give is yes box it all up and store carefully, Ive sold stuff that "Id never use again" and regretted it, and funnily enough Im buiding up a collection again. CB is quite poor from my home QTH but Ive chucked an Alinco in the Pick up so tend to go on the nets from a static mobile location up the hills

Been a while since I've posted on here so thought I'd make a comment on this topic.

After being into radio for the best part of 40 years I've called it a day completely, there will be no returning to it for me, the last bit of gear I had was sold a few months ago. My reasons for calling it a day are a few but the main one is there's better more interesting things for me to do these days then spending hours just listening (and talking back to) voices coming out of a speaker basically. All good things must come to end as they say and I think for almost four decades I've had a darn good run with it. CB radio is how I got into it in the first proper instance in 1979. Through the 80's and early part of the 90's it was great but then CB went completely down the tubes imo afterwards. I got my ham licence in the early noughties and that's were my main interest for radio was placed for many years, but due to repeater shut downs, the misuse of, idiots becoming often on the bands, more contesting then you can shake a stick at, and the digital revolution of the hobby (just my words on this) I thought about it all and realised my passion for it all had actually gone a long time ago, I just didn't know that until I thought about it.

I've been a bit of a computer enthusiast since the late 90's and kept my interest in this and radio separate from each other having never combined the two. My interest is in computing and has been the same since I bought my first second-hand one which came with windows 95, an IBM Cyrix cpu, 2GB hard drive, and 32MB of memory! My oh my how tech has moved on, and I suppose I have to.

It was fun and I made a lot of friends (sadly some no longer with us) and met lots of folk through radio, but for me radio just doesn't have 'that thing' it used to have once upon a time. Will I miss it in time to come? I can hand on heart say no I won't. Like a relationship that's gone it's course and there's no love left between anymore the end result is both have to go their separate ways, that's me and radio.

Sold up in March this year because of the interference on the radio at home,have tried plenty decent radios with "good" N.blankers,loads of antennas and nothing cuts it out.Annoying that all that money can be spent and not guaranteed to hear much because of all the cheap electric crap we are surrounded by.wouldn't happen with a new tv but if the channels were all fkd eh,no problem sir.Through into the mix the skip is poor,watch this space,rant over

Pretty quiet here. Only drivers asking for speedtraps. Lucky, my area is quiet, no need to use NB nor ANL. Needle stays rested all the time
Since I have whole room for my toys no need to box or store them.

I bought my first Radio Receiver a MK19 set late 1960s. Then 1979 I bought a President Veep CB 40 channels Am/fm.. Then when CB became legal Binatone 5 Star. Next passed RAE 1981 and got a G6 call and the Yeasu FT290.Then couple of years later passed the CW Exam to get the then A Licence. Over all those years I would never think of getting rid of my Gear. Sometimes I can go many months and months without switching anything. However its always there when I need it.I still Love it now like I did in the 1960s as a shortwave listener..

Transwarp wrote: ↑23 Dec 2017, 22:55 I've been a bit of a computer enthusiast since the late 90's and kept my interest in this and radio separate from each other having never combined the two. My interest is in computing and has been the same since I bought my first second-hand one which came with windows 95, an IBM Cyrix cpu, 2GB hard drive, and 32MB of memory! My oh my how tech has moved on, and I suppose I have to.

It was fun and I made a lot of friends (sadly some no longer with us) and met lots of folk through radio, but for me radio just doesn't have 'that thing' it used to have once upon a time. Will I miss it in time to come? I can hand on heart say no I won't. Like a relationship that's gone it's course and there's no love left between anymore the end result is both have to go their separate ways, that's me and radio.

Isn't the hobby of computers just as static as radio? I mean, what do you actually get from computers? A lot of people these days don't even own a computer as they'd just prefer to browse the internet on a tablet or phone. OK you can always write code, but to create what as there's software and apps for most things nowadays. You could always combine computers and radio into your interests, like sdr hardware with software control - perhaps design and build your own front-end filters to your sdr USB receiver and your own software as the softrf processing and control.

But yeah, there's little to listen to on most bands these days. I think the internet spoilt people, but now people are getting bored of the internet!

silverspring wrote: ↑27 Dec 2017, 13:51

Transwarp wrote: ↑23 Dec 2017, 22:55 I've been a bit of a computer enthusiast since the late 90's and kept my interest in this and radio separate from each other having never combined the two. My interest is in computing and has been the same since I bought my first second-hand one which came with windows 95, an IBM Cyrix cpu, 2GB hard drive, and 32MB of memory! My oh my how tech has moved on, and I suppose I have to.

It was fun and I made a lot of friends (sadly some no longer with us) and met lots of folk through radio, but for me radio just doesn't have 'that thing' it used to have once upon a time. Will I miss it in time to come? I can hand on heart say no I won't. Like a relationship that's gone it's course and there's no love left between anymore the end result is both have to go their separate ways, that's me and radio.

Isn't the hobby of computers just as static as radio? I mean, what do you actually get from computers? A lot of people these days don't even own a computer as they'd just prefer to browse the internet on a tablet or phone. OK you can always write code, but to create what as there's software and apps for most things nowadays. You could always combine computers and radio into your interests, like sdr hardware with software control - perhaps design and build your own front-end filters to your sdr USB receiver and your own software as the softrf processing and control.

But yeah, there's little to listen to on most bands these days. I think the internet spoilt people, but now people are getting bored of the internet!

Just as there's users and enthusiasts of radio the same is true for other hobbies. The distinction is that there are users of tech (tablets, smart phones etc) then there's enthusiasts who have their own interests in something. PC's these days to just users of have more or less faded away as tabs and smart phones have replaced them. PC's are more for gaming and performance audiences now. I build, repair, and make custom ones. The custom jobs are like doing the same on a car and thousands can be spent building a high performance custom PC. It's a hobby I like and I get a lot of satisfaction making poorly computers well again and/or creating mechanical & electronic masterpieces from scratch

silverspring wrote: ↑27 Dec 2017, 13:51Isn't the hobby of computers just as static as radio? I mean, what do you actually get from computers?

I like playing with operating systems. I've been installing Linux on and off since 1997 - so I get quite excited when a new distro comes out.

With the craze of "retro" things coming back around again, I'm patiently waiting for DOS

I've not turned a radio on for several months now.. The wife has filled my shack full of boxes and toys and other Cr@P. I was going to empty it while i've been off due to knee op but it's to bloomin cold!
I have sold my 450at as it had been sat unused for over 3 years... Not a chance i'll sell my CB radios though!
I've got back into retro gaming using a raspberry pi3 with Retropie on it! I can just about manage this style of gaming with only 2 buttons!
I'm sure come the spring i'll dig my shack out and dust off my radios.