The guy took a bath when he bought all the nice gear, right?

	There are a lot of very expensive hobbies. Amateur radio
costs an arm and a leg or it can cost next to nothing for the
people who are smart enough to build their own equipment or
modify existing stuff they acquired to do what they want to do.

	I would probably fit somewhere in the middle of that
range. Remember the discussion several days ago about light
probes? I can build devices like that and program PIC processors
amongst other things but there are plenty of things I have not
conquered such as handling surface-mount parts.

	For folks who are blind, the best way to convey a
circuit is to describe it in text. I remember, as a boy, reading
a book on electronics that had been written in England. They
tried to display schematics which were okay if you just had a
few parts but Braille schematics start looking like a plate of
spaghetti very quickly if the circuit is complex. One doesn't
know whether to pour spaghetti sauce on it and eat it or try to
build it.

	One thing I have always wished for but not been able to
find is a pair of gloves made of 1 layer of some fabric that
doesn't burn or melt at soldering temperature but is thin enough
to feel through.

	Cotton gloves are perfect but will burn through in a
fraction of a second.

	With such gloves, one could use a standard soldering
iron and guide it in to where it needs to be without cooking
other wires and parts near by.

	Anyway, it seems kind of like a game to see how much
capability one can figure out how to acquire for as little dough
as possible.

	Things like software defined radios (SDR's) and software
development programs that let one create great things from one's
own brain are exciting since they hold the promise of being able
to build like we've never built before. The challenge will be to
learn enough to be able to use these new tools.

	We might spend $20 or $50 for the SDR and
seventy-thousand Dollars to get a graduate degree in advanced
numerical analysis in order to listen to CB Channel 19.

	In my case, I took 6 hours of Technical Calculous in the
eighties, squeaked by with a B in all but one semester in which
I made a C due to not fully mastering trig identities and felt
grateful for that.

	Maybe I will have the time since I am retired to learn a
few numerical DSP techniques but we're talking really tough
problems, here.

	Still, to keep on topic, I look for SDR and DSP to be
great cost reducers over time.

Martin

Jim Shaffer writes:
> Well sort of makes sense Colin.  If you don't shower, you need to talk to
> folks via radio.