The Building Hobby Bring it back! How can we bring back the electronics hobby? Today, all that remains of this once great hobby are pockets of builders and "small-i" inventors. For instance: In ham radio, QRPers often "home-brew" their transmitters and receivers. Some mechanical TV hobbyists still build everything. Roboticists and some musicians still build small projects. Some model railroaders are very handy. Cause? Maybe the hobby magazines and Radio Shack unknowingly contributed to the hobby's decline. Where are the circuit cookbooks that Radio Shack used to stock? Over about a decade, they disappeared. More than a few engineers started out with Radio Shack "P-Box" kits. At one time, you could go to a Radio Shack and buy the components of a radio: A 240 μH loopstick. A 365 pF tuning capacitor. A crystal headset. They're gone. Bang for the buck. Meanwhile, electronics magazines began publishing projects that were too complex and too expensive. Editors forgot the idea of "bang for the buck." For years, 73 Amateur Radio Magazine stood alone in the publishing field: It was the sole source of amateur projects by and for amateur builders. Like a later-day Hugo Gernsback, 73's editor Wayne Green provided a product that spoke directly to you and me. As somebody said, building a 73 project didn't require an engineering degree. Yet now, even 73 is history. Fortunately, we still have Nuts & Volts!

What Editors Need to Know

Before they started collecting unemployment, the editors of failed electronics magazines should have asked themselves these questions...

• Who would even start a project that costs $200? How about one every month?

• If the project requires many rare parts from several vendors, who can afford the minimum order amounts?

• If the project doesn't include a PC board, how many builders can finish?

• If the project is too difficult for the weekend warrior to understand, then how can he appreciate it?

• If the educational material has vanished, then how can he learn from his project?

In its favor, toward the end, Poptronix offered a variety of projects. (Poptronix was successor to, among others, Radio-Electronics, Popular Electronics and Elementary Electronics. My comments lump all these magazines together.) I fondly recall wonderful columns by Byron Wels, Charles Rakes and Marc Ellis. For ideas, I loved to scour columns by Forrest Mims, Don Lancaster and Robert Grossblatt. The magazine also began running a "Q&A" column. As in helpful radio magazines from the 1930s, this column often provided custom circuits on request. I'm happy to find that Nuts & Volts is carrying on this tradition. Such efforts probably stalled Poptronix's demise. Yet unfortunately, these thoughtful columns were too little, too late. The cover articles remained complex, expensive and difficult to understand or build. (I must mention too, that I occasionally contributed to Popular Electronics, the magazine that became Poptronix. Thank you, Carl Laron, for publishing me!)

Scale Predicts Success

Project scale plays a role. Once magazines were full of transistor projects, and Radio Shack stocked all the parts. Many home builders could and did build these projects. Such projects even started many on a lucrative electronics career. When magazines articles began to feature projects with tiny surface-mount parts, LSIs and programmed EPROMs, fewer could participate. You could tell that people weren't building the projects, because Radio Shack didn't bother to stock the parts. These projects created a barrier to beginner and intermediate builders. Some advanced builders were beyond these projects. Others couldn't find any value in spending so much time to build something so expensive and complex. Inevitably, such projects also included schematic errors.

Moral: The magazines appealed to fewer and fewer people. The over-designed projects probably discouraged new builders from subscribing. In electronics projects, scale counts. Here, scale refers to many ideas...

• Part size. For example, SMDs aren't human-scaled parts. They're ideal for robot assembly. To use SMDs, humans must struggle with special and often very expensive tools. There are workarounds such as homemade tools, but these add time to a project.

• Expense. Complex projects unavoidably cost a lot of money.

• Value. A builder wants a return from his work and expediture in time and money. For instance, The return might come from the use of a new instrument that he's just built. Maybe this instrument helps the builder to sort parts. Or maybe through the business use of the project, the builder can receive some sort of dollar return. Certain projects deliver great return for only say, a weekend of work. These are probably the best projects. At some point, there's a crossover point. The project, no matter how useful, is just too complicated, time-consuming or expensive. The return doesn't justify the effort or dollar cost. These projects probably don't sell magazines, because for the builder, the projects don't produce an adequate return.

• Component size. If the components are too small, hobbyists won't take any interest in the project. Extensive use of SMDs is probably out. Use of SMDs should at most be optional.

• Part complexity. Relating to a transistor is easy: You can see what goes in, what comes out, and what the bias is. You have a real schematic, and not just a block diagram, as with most ICs. Even small-scale logic gates are fairly easy to work with. You don't get a schematic, but logic diagrams usually make sense. Larger-scale chips have neither schematics nor logic diagrams. They're black boxes, taking away the builder's ability to understand, modify or substitute. Worse still, assembly becomes extremely delicate and often requires special tools and techniques. Breadboarding without a special PC board is difficult or impossible. This statement especially applies to surface-mount ICs.

• Part density. What we once did with a few transistors, we now do with a PC board full of LSIs. To an appliance user, the complexity is behind the panel, and the product represents "progress." To the builder, though, the complex version is at best only slightly better than the simple version. Meanwhile, the complex version costs more and takes more time to build and debug. Yet the complex version is seldom more useful. Why not skip the fancy, digital, contemporary version? The builder would do far better by visiting the library and looking up the analog version. Problem for a magazine: Your own back issues compete with your "latest thing." If the old version is superior, less fussy or easier to build, smart builders know that. Uninformed users give up and cancel their subscriptions.

Occam's Razor. The popularity of hobby writing sometimes predicts the success of an electronics project. As an editor, I insist on clarity, simplicity and usability. I also think like the user. I make all the usual mistakes. I wonder why I took a wrong turn here, but found my way perfectly there. Then I begin to notice a pattern. I focus. I enter the zone. When reasoning, procedure or syntax are foggy, I apply Occam's Razor. I revise. I cut. I streamline. Slowly, the value of the manuscript improves. What does that have to do with the electronics hobby? Here's what: Clarity, simplicity and usability are important qualities for projects, too. What hobbyists want is a project with several admirable features. The final projects in the departed hobby magazines too often neglected these qualities. But the earlier projects usually provided these qualities. That's why Papa Gernsback sold so many magazines.

What Makes An Ideal Project

An ideal project...

• Doesn't take that long, but provides enough learning and challenge so that I can be proud of the result.

• Uses standard parts. I don't want to wait for a week to get my parts. (Plus two weeks after I find out that something didn't work, or I forgot something.) After months go by, I can't remember what's in that dark corner of my bench. Eventually, I just load the parts into a bin. (If the parts are standard, I lose nothing.)

• Has utility, so that I can use it frequently. That's bang for the buck. Besides, I don't need another $200 novelty (white elephant).

• Is easy to modify. (The original fun of ham building, and the basis of learning!)

• Makes sense. If I can't follow the theory, how do I know a malfunction from normal operation? Published circuits that look as though they don't work usually don't. Flaws usually hide in backward, upside-down or colored schematics.

• Never substitutes grandiose circuitry for the simplest possible circuit. If a transistor will do, then several op amps are at best inefficient. I don't care if I can squeeze one percent more performance out of the elaborate circuit. My concern is the necessity of 90 percent more gates. (Usually the performance statement is hyperbole anyway.)

• Is serviceable, both now and in 10 years.

• Contains reusable parts and construction.

• Doesn't require special tools. You should be able to build it with basic tools...

  – Needlenose pliers	– Cutting dykes	– Screwdrivers	– Soldering iron
  – Hacksaw	– Nibbler	– File	– DVM

• Includes some sort of backup for the user. Test points, a troubleshooting table, and an email address are good examples. If the project requires a programmed microcontroller, then the author must source this part. If the project involves ICs, particularly LSIs, a PC board source is a must.

• Comes at a reasonable price, even considering builder errors that destroy parts.

Electronics Hobby Links

Magazines

• Byte Magazine. The late Wayne Green started Byte in 1975. Although he lost the magazine, it continued under new management. The magazine finally ceased publication in 1998. Also see Byte and Wayne Green. Along with articles about PC products, early issues of Byte included digital projects. Although I'd consider few of these projects to be "ideal projects," they're fascinating anyway.

• Circuit Cellar Ink. Steve Ciarcia spun off the "projects" section from Byte. Ciarcia's new magazine became Circuit Cellar Ink. If you're sick of the analog world that I promote above, get this magazine. This is a wonderful place to learn about embedded processors, Linux and specialized peripherals. Never a dull moment.

• CQ Magazine, one of the few remaining ham radio publications. I particularly recommend the columns by Irwin Math and Dave Ingram. In the old days, I loved Bill DeWitt's slow-scan TV column. This Web page allows you to search the archives.

• Electronics Illustrated Magazine. Fawcett Publications' one-time sister magazine to Mechanix Illustrated.

• Electronics World Magazine. The successor to Radio-Television News. Hugo Gernsback started publishing this magazine as Radio News. He lost control of it in 1938. Its successor became Electronics World. Eventually Popular Electronics absorbed the magazine.

• Hands-On Electronics Magazine, Julian Martin's masterpiece. The resurrected Elementary Electronics, an ancestor of Poptronix. During its run as Hands-On Electronics, it was a vastly superior publication.

• Nuts & Volts. In the US, this magazine pretty much owns the hobby now. Along with a few analog projects, Nuts & Volts gives you the latest on microcontrollers, robotics and optoelectronics.

• Popular Electronics Magazine, including some of the great, and not-so-great projects. If the parts were obscure in 1966, imagine how hard they'll be to find today.

• Radio Electronics Magazine. Complete with more classic (and some easily fogotten) projects. Forget about tunnel diodes, unijunction transistors, germanium devices, "standard" coil forms and most 1960s FETs. They're as obsolete as an astrolabe. Unless you locate new-old stock at a hamfest, you need to design a workaround!

People

• Hugo Gernsback. The man who started our electronics hobby. And the science fiction publishing industry. He's the namesake of the prestigious Hugo award. In 1928, Gernsback owned one of the first TV stations, WRNY (Radio News, New York).

• Wayne Green (obituary). (Here I used to link to Wayne's homepage, but an investing business hacked that page. Too bad.) Wayne's page was once a fascinating montage of bold adventure, common sense and utter pseudoscience. How true to Wayne's rambling editorials in the marvelous 73 magazine. Wayne also started Byte, Kilobaud, 80 Micro and Hot CoCo magazines. Out in his New Hampshire barn, he operated his own recording studio. (The great Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane recorded CDs there.) Green often appeared on radio programs. Wayne was the engaging eccentric that most of us would like to know. This was a guy who “knew enough to be dangerous.” He played with fire for over 50 years.

• Wayne Green's "moon hoax" book. Could the astronauts survive the Van Allen Belts? Why didn't the film melt during the 240-degree lunar days? Hasselblads without viewfinders? How did they aim them?

• Response to Wayne Green's "moon hoax" page. Here's the lowdown from the scientists, point-by-point. Sorry, Wayne.

• Moonvertising: Put your name on the moon! Has nothing to do with electronics, but isn't any sillier than other moon-related hogwash above.

• Debunking Moonvertising. Despite the beer company ads, "Moonvertising" is baloney-vertsing. The physics prohibit success. And we should be glad that they do. Without the beer logo, isn't the moon much more intriguing? True story behind the promotion.

Projects

• Convert an old, germanium-transistor project so that it'll work with today's silicon transistors. Get those P-Box kits and magazine plans working!

• P-box kits. Manuals & schematics. Some 30 years ago, every Radio Shack devoted a corner to P-Box kits. These kits included a regenerative radio, intercom, strobe light, metal detector, and more. None of the kits used more than five transistors. My three-transistor regen pulled in China and Australia! Builders: Most of the transistors are germanium. Without bias changes, silicon transistors won't work in the same circuits. To convert your circuit, see... Convert

Retail Stores

• Fry's. The store that spun off from Radio Shack. Well, not quite. Once upon a time, Radio Shack's parent Tandy opened superstores to supplement its smaller mall stores. Tandy called the superstores "Incredible Universe." The big-box concept didn't perform up to Tandy's expectations. Tandy sold the stores. Today, they've become a new chain, Frys. Dig down between the hard drives, memory sticks and PCs: You'll find that like Radio Shack, Fry's sells electronic parts!

• Radio Shack. "You've got money. We've got phone contracts." (Just kidding.) This is the store that used to initiate boys and girls into the thrilling world of geekdom. The store where engineering students landed their first part-time, survival jobs. Former home of several computers. Fortunately if you sneak to the back of the store, you can still find transistors, resistors, capacitors and LEDs.

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