State of the art

Allison wrote: Call me a old fart but I still like Analog Radio and real music rather than digital this and that. I still think the BEST radio's are still ones built by hand rather than a mass market product like you see now days. While I don't deal in HAM radio I do see ShortWave Radio's now and then ranging from $49 to $100 with very few features that I consider now to be valuable. State of the Art to me is using the best knowlage and best use of components at the time rather than cheapest product as it now is. -- mass production of high speed low quality FET's -- is today's state of the art for all electronic devices built today. DSP is great for getting a signal out of noise like a space probe with a watt or two of power but just what is the front end of the reciver like? Playing with HI-fi audio I found negitive feedback is often mis-used. Non-linear components generate x**n harmonics that creates more noise because nobody considers this anymore. A valve diode I think is the lowest noise diode but who uses that. XTAL radio people have great front ends with a high Q but who uses that? All this aside ham radio still needs good people who know the equipment rather than some $$$$ product by microsoft-radio-95 so when ham people need to be called out for real work saving people with radio they can do it be it state of the art or a old transiver that they just happen to have kicking around with them at the time. .