{"id":4136,"date":"2017-02-18T14:16:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-18T03:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2017\/02\/18\/peter-parker-vk3ye-on-vintage-gear-in-his-new-book\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T16:38:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T06:38:00","slug":"peter-parker-vk3ye-on-vintage-gear-in-his-new-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2017\/02\/18\/peter-parker-vk3ye-on-vintage-gear-in-his-new-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Parker VK3YE on Vintage Gear (in his new book!)"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

Homebrew Hero Peter Parker has a new book on the market. I was really taken by his description of the joys of restoring older gear. Peter really nails it. Here is an excerpt: <\/p>\n

Vintage Equipment<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

The collection, restoration and use of historical equipment is another movement in amateur radio. The musty smell of warming dust, the heavy clunk of rotary switches and the velvet smoothness of precision tuning drives are joys of every use. <\/span><\/b>
Such sensuality is absent from modern plastic-fronted, wobbly-knobbed transceivers. Old rig cabinets felt they had something in them. A kick would hurt you more than them. And etched panel markings confirmed they were built to last.<\/span><\/b>
Unlike today\u2019s dainty push buttons with stunted travel and disembodied beep, toggle switches showed you where they stood. Weight, life and play made adjusting controls for nulls and peaks (as often required) both a pleasure and occasional frustration. Even if only as mechanical backlash on a bad tuning dial, it was as if the equipment was telling you something, like a ridden horse does through its reins. Not like newer gear\u2019s lack of tactility which is like a \u2018dead fish\u2019 handshake, all take and no give. <\/span><\/b>
There are psychic as well as physical joys. The thrill of bringing neglected or dead equipment to life drives many. It\u2019s an underestimated skill. You start with nothing and almost anything done represents progress when building from scratch. Whereas with a repair it is very easy to render something that\u2019s 80% good completely useless with a careless drop or slip.<\/span><\/b>

<\/span><\/b> More about \u2018Getting back into Amateur Radio\u2019 is at <\/span>
http:\/\/home.alphalink.com.au\/~<\/wbr>parkerp\/gettingback.htm<\/a> <\/span>
& the video at https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?<\/wbr>v=g4ktP5K4x-I<\/a><\/span>
<\/b><\/i><\/u><\/sub><\/sup><\/strike><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Homebrew Hero Peter Parker has a new book on the market. I was really taken by his description of the joys of restoring older gear. Peter really nails it. Here is an excerpt: Vintage Equipment The collection, restoration and use of historical equipment is another movement in amateur radio. The musty smell of warming dust, … Continue reading “Peter Parker VK3YE on Vintage Gear (in his new book!)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,50,100,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-books","category-old-radio","category-parker-peter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4138,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4136\/revisions\/4138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}