New technology will always replace old technology

[Bogieboy01]

11 hours ago, beerftw said:

I am not old enough to have been around such radios new, but I do remember my old 1970's fisher quadraphonic sound system my great aunt gave me in the early 2000's. I do not believe the tech was better then than now, but the sound that thing put out would blow away any modern stereo by leaps and bounds. I beleive the original receipt she had in the box listed the radio the speaker set and the 8 track player and record player at over 2k in the 1970's, with the dual cassette player being 800 bucks. I got the radio and the dual cassette player with some speakers, but not the 8 track or record player.

 

  She planned to actually throw them out because they were old but man did that setup sound awesome. The tech then was older but so much better built, probably because 2k could almost buy you a new car then on the lower end, and for that kind of money for a shelf stereo system it had to be worth it or no one would buy it, while now you can buy a cheap shelf stereo for 50 bucks or a boombox or bluetooth speaker sub 30 bucks.

Oh, i am nowhere near old enough to have been around tube radios when new either i was born in 88.... but yeah, the 60s and 70s hifi stuff is leaps and bounds better than the cheap chinese "radios" that they pass off as "DLP" "thx certified" etc.... 

[WRUE951]

41 minutes ago, Bogieboy01 said:

Oh, i am nowhere near old enough to have been around tube radios when new either i was born in 88.... but yeah, the 60s and 70s hifi stuff is leaps and bounds better than the cheap chinese "radios" that they pass off as "DLP" "thx certified" etc.... 

They don't make Stereo Amps like they use to.  I still have my Pioneer 9800 purchased in 1978.   Although its currently packed away in a orginal box along with a pair of HPM 100 speakers and other gear everything  still works..   My grandson is building a stereo listening room with today's junk, someday im gonna surprise him and gift him with the best of the best.  

[Bogieboy01]

Just now, WRUE951 said:

They don't make Stereo Amps like they use to.  I still have my Pioneer 9800 purchased in 1978.   Although its currently packed in a orginal box along with a pair of HPM 100 speakers and other gear everything  still works..   My grandson is building a stereo listening room with today's junk, someday im gonna surprise him with the best of the best.  

The pioneer stuff is good..... i think i would give my left nut for a 70s Marantz though.... (that seems to be about the going rate anyways, with working units pushing into the several thousands of monies range....)

[WRUE951]

33 minutes ago, Bogieboy01 said:

The pioneer stuff is good..... i think i would give my left nut for a 70s Marantz though.... (that seems to be about the going rate anyways, with working units pushing into the several thousands of monies range....)

When i bought my Pioneer i was weighing it with the Marantz 2270.  It was a tough choice but IMO the Pioneer sounded better and came bundled with a decent turntable at the time.  The Maranz will pull more money on the used market.  Everyone wanted Marantz back in the day..  My Pioneer as obviously served me well. 

[SteveShannon]

1 hour ago, WRUE951 said:

They don't make Stereo Amps like they use to.  I still have my Pioneer 9800 purchased in 1978.   Although its currently packed away in a orginal box along with a pair of HPM 100 speakers and other gear everything  still works..   My grandson is building a stereo listening room with today's junk, someday im gonna surprise him and gift him with the best of the best.  

I still have my Pioneer SA8500 and direct drive Pioneer turntable from the seventies.  

[WRUE951]

43 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

I still have my Pioneer SA8500 and direct drive Pioneer turntable from the seventies.  

that's a good one...   I don't have any vinyl left in my collection but I still have most of my CD's and reals of tape left.  I bought  HD CD's whenever I could.  

IMG_3374.HEIC

[Davichko5650]

3 hours ago, WRUE951 said:

 HPM 100 speakers 

My buddy still has his set of 4 of these, they were always one of the best sounding speakers around, and his still rock the house very well!

[dosw]

On 2/5/2026 at 6:38 AM, WRZK526 said:

Now Starlink has a mobile unit for your cell phone. Global radio's, just bought a pair and my wife and I can connect instantly with a push of a button. We still use GMRS radios but these have no limits except they have to connect to a cell tower, no contracts or charges. I grew up with a rotary phone at the house. Watched the evolution of the internet, does anyone remember dial up. Watched cell phones go from the brick to mini computers that take pictures, gets on internet and does so much more.

No matter how you upgrade old tech it eventually becomes obsolete. Imagine what will happen to all radios in the future. Will HAM and GMRS survive or become a thing of the past? Maybe survive but will not look like it does now. 

If Starlink or any other "infrastructure as a service" can be set to avoid aiding a foreign military's drones, it can be regulated for others, too. That's not necessarily a bad thing under the conditions in which we live today. In the late 1930s and early 1940s shortwave was critical as a means of wireless communication in Europe. That need doesn't exist in the same form today. But it will continue to present itself somehow.

 

The conduit is RF. How we use it; digital modes, and such, that will evolve. Every day life is more and more connected to cell towers and satellites -- to infrastructure. Extraordinary life will continue to have occasional needs for alternatives.

 

I'm not a prepper, by the way. I just recognize that the disruptive technologies we carry in our pockets improve a lot of things, but rely more heavily than ever on infrastructure that is not infallible. 

[GreggInFL]

Marantz was the bomb. We had speakers so large they were on wheels. I installed an 8 track in a '64 Mustang.

Music was public, and phone calls were private.

[TerriKennedy]

6 hours ago, dosw said:

I'm not a prepper, by the way. I just recognize that the disruptive technologies we carry in our pockets improve a lot of things, but rely more heavily than ever on infrastructure that is not infallible. 

I provide infrastructure in an area of the Mojave Desert that has no cell service and landline service is no longer available. This is by point-to-point radio on mountaintops (solar cells and batteries) backhaul to Las Vegas, 100+ miles away. Internet, micro cells, POTS lines (translated to VoIP), etc. I put a GMRS repeater on a mountaintop so the duners 35 miles away can call ahead for pizza. I have an inReach Mini emergency transponder with me and used to have an old-school satcom rig (pre-Starlink) at base camp.

All of these have their benefits, but sometimes the best answer is "none of the above".

In 2019 I fell on a mountain while coming back down and broke both bones (radius and ulna) in my right forearm, with bones sticking out. I had to decide whether or not to use the inReach or self-rescue. Fortunately I had no major blood loss and I could still feel and move my fingers (even though my arm was like Harry Potter's after the inept wizard Lockwood removed his bones by accident). I threw some army surplus clotting powder on it, fashioned a splint by snapping one of my hiking sticks, and used a giant plastic Target bag as a sling, with my head through the handle and my arm through a hole poked in the side of the bag. If I did have major blood loss I would have had very little time to get a tourniquet on before passing out, and even the inReach wouldn't have helped. It took me an hour and a half to get back down the mountain, an hour driving across open desert and then dirt roads and another hour on paved roads to get to the nearest hospital (middle of nowhere, remember). Aside from the occasional scream of pain, that worked well.

The alternative would have been to push the panic button, wait 45 minutes to an hour for the medical helicopter to arrive, set down on the flatlands, look up at the mountain and go "NFW!". They would then have called San Bernardino SAR mutual aid who would have carried a litter up the mountain to me, put me in it (while ribbing me mercilessly, since I know those guys and sometimes train with them), have the helicopter hover and drop a cable to hook to my litter and haul me up, and then fly me back to the same hospital I mentioned above.

In retrospect, I made the right decision - I got myself to the hospital in 3.5 hours. About 6 months later a similar scenario happened a bit closer to "civilization" and it took over 8 hours from the emergency satellite call to when the injured party was on the helicopter (and not even at the hospital yet).

I'm not a prepper - I'm prepared.

Here's a picture of where I fell vs. where my Jeep was parked for reference. I'll skip posting the X-rays of my arm because I don't want to squick anybody out badly.

[beerftw]

13 hours ago, Bogieboy01 said:

Oh, i am nowhere near old enough to have been around tube radios when new either i was born in 88.... but yeah, the 60s and 70s hifi stuff is leaps and bounds better than the cheap chinese "radios" that they pass off as "DLP" "thx certified" etc.... 

So you are actually younger than me, either way when looking backat what I remember written on the receipts I am convinced the quality was due to the price, it was expensive for parts, labor to tune those radios were expensive, and at the end of the day the radio had to sound good, get good reception, be easily repairable, and have a warranty they stood behind or no one would have justified the high cost.

 

 If a stereo cost you 10k today you know you would be hooping and hollering if it was not top quality for that price, imagine back then a full stereo setup costing as much as a low end car, the buyer would have demanded it be so good their great great great grandchildren would still be using it.

[WSKY396]

On 2/5/2026 at 7:09 AM, SteveShannon said:

You’re correct in one regard; new technology does replace old.  Spark gap transmitters went the way of the rotary dial phone once vacuum tubes were developed.

But in a more important way, you have completely missed the point.  Many (perhaps most) of us who adopt analog radios for communication do so because of the desire to be as independent of commercial or government provided infrastructure as possible.  History has taught us that such infrastructure, as complex as it is and as reliant as it is on commercial interests, trade agreements, and the peaceful coexistence of nations, is vulnerable to disruption by overload, hacking, space weather, or the overnight whims of one unstable politician or another.

The features might change and more and more digital modes may be developed, but the basic physics never will and those physics allow a person to build a very simple radio transmitter and receiver, in spite of how far technology has staggered forward. I just need to stock up on transistors.

Tip a to the old school. This is exactly what got my interest.

[Bogieboy01]

11 hours ago, beerftw said:

So you are actually younger than me, either way when looking backat what I remember written on the receipts I am convinced the quality was due to the price, it was expensive for parts, labor to tune those radios were expensive, and at the end of the day the radio had to sound good, get good reception, be easily repairable, and have a warranty they stood behind or no one would have justified the high cost.

 

 If a stereo cost you 10k today you know you would be hooping and hollering if it was not top quality for that price, imagine back then a full stereo setup costing as much as a low end car, the buyer would have demanded it be so good their great great great grandchildren would still be using it.

Precisely..... like the 75 royce thats in the mail to me.... heres the original ad copy.... would anyone pay this today for a stock cb only radio? I doubt it...