[hpsdr] Interesting rant from a friend

[Brian Lloyd]

I have a good friend (who will remain nameless here) who sent me a rant
after reading ongoing complaining about the Apache radios. I thought his
comments were excellent and I am going to share them here with his personal
information expurgated. Take it for what you will. I am sure it will offend
some people. But, frankly, it needs to be said. So feel free to flame ME
because I thought it appropriate to post it.

----
There is an interesting phenomenon going on and, if you think back, we saw
the same thing with Flex. A fair number of hams ran out and bought 10s and
100s and 100Ds without reading the specs, checking out the available
software, and thinking about what they planned to do with the radios once
they got them.
Now they have radios that don't do what they want or don't do it as they
want or they don't know *how* to make do what they want and they are
getting pissy and blaming either Apache or the volunteer developers or both.
This isn't about what the radios will or won't do, should or shouldn't do
except to the extent that a prudent person explores those questions before
laying down the long green.
Rednecks have a saying about black bass: "If it makes noise and flashes,
they gotta have it." Sic semper hamicus. They want bragging rights about
having the latest and greatest (Hey, lots cheaper than a 9000) but they
know little or nothing about SDR, even in concept, let alone down in the
mathematical weeds.  Worse yet, some think they do.
Now they are stuck and need someone to blame. The fact that they made
ignorant, thoughtless purchase decisions seemingly never enters their
heads. I find myself wanting to scream:
THIS ISN'T AN EFFING TOASTER!!!

This underscores an argument that I have made before. The FCC exams are
obsolete. The OPs who lament that newbies don't know anything about radio
have had the tables turned. Now it evolves that they may be able to tell
you all about grounded grid triodes but they don't know jack shit about
decimation or the difference between DDS and DDC. Rather than asking the
examinee to calculate parallel inductance in a circuit (that nowadays is
packaged in a chip, anyway), they need to begin asking
if people understand, in at least a general way, what an FFT is and why one
would use it.
----

Amen.

-- 
Brian Lloyd, WB6RQN/J79BPL
706 Flightline Drive
Spring Branch, TX 78070
brian at lloyd.com
+1.916.877.5067
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