13300	2016-11-24 21:50:34	gamma_function	Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)
Message	Date	From	Subject
Amateur Radio Techniques, by Pat Hawker Wondering if anybody has first hand knowledge of this book, first published by RSGB in 1965 with several subsequent editions through c. 1980. Was it a sort of British version of SSD and EMRFD? If it was kept current through 1980 then it hit that sweet spot of covering mature analog circuits right before the op amp floodgates opened. Still worth seeking out? KK6JTZ
13301	2016-11-24 23:34:44	Tony Fishpool	Re: Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)
Pat Hawker G3VA was a legend. For 50 years he wrote the Technical Topics column in Radcom and Amateur Radio Techniques was an early compilation. I have the 5th edition from the mid 70’s. Topics are organised by subject, so there is a chapter on receivers for instance. The RSGB have since published “Technical Topics Scrapbook - All 50 Years”. I quote from the RSGB bookshop: “Technical Topics Scrapbook -50 Years includes all the words, pictures and line drawings from column produced presented exactly as they first appeared. The CD contains easy to use PDF copies of the pages arranged in annual collections from 1958 to 2008. Whilst the book reproduces the pages from the years 2005-2008 in the popular scrapbook format.” It wasn’t quite like SSD & EMRFD but more like the QST “Hints & Kinks” column, but better in my view and written by the same bloke all the time. If you like owning good books then of course seek out the early book, but the current compilation has the lot anyway. A great Christmas present. The ISBN number is ISBN 9781-9050-8639-9 if you wish to seek it locally. Order from the RSGB at http://www.rsgbshop.org You can also buy in book form the compilations from 1985-1989 & 1990-1994. 72/3 Tony G4WIF >Wondering if anybody has firsthand knowledge of this book > Still worth seeking out? >KK6JTZ
13302	2016-11-25 00:52:00	blumu	Re: Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)
ART is a gem, of the genre of SSD, but a collation of practical ideas, many from his "Technical Topics" column in RadCom. Also, watch out for "Technical Topics Scrapbook", a companion collation by Pat Hawker. If you are interested in steam radio, they are well worth searching out. MichaelUK On 25.11.16 04:32, gamma_function@yahoo.com [emrfd] wrote: > Amateur Radio Techniques, by Pat Hawker > Wondering if anybody has first hand knowledge of this book, first > published by RSGB in 1965 with several subsequent editions through c. > 1980. Was it a sort of British version of SSD and EMRFD? If it was kept > current through 1980 then it hit that sweet spot of covering mature > analog circuits right before the op amp floodgates opened. Still worth > seeking out?
13303	2016-11-25 02:52:47	Stewart Bryant	Re: Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)
Pat started his column pre-internet when few libraries had all the amateur radio and professional publications. What he did was to visit a library near where he worked which took a wide variety of such publications at lunch time, and summarize the most interesting articles. So the column consisted a series of ideas in which he included the most important circuit diagram, a summary of the key points, and the original reference so you could find the full article. Thus pre-Internet it was a really good way of understanding the latest developments in the technology of amateur radio. Unfortunately Pat did not really follow digital technology, so towards the end it slipped behind the curve. If you are going to get anything, I would go for the 50 year book as it has the complete collection on CD. I got Radcom/RadioCommunications/The T&R Bulletin so had seen most if the articles, but no-the-less found the book and collection interesting. 73 Stewart/G3YSX
13304	2016-11-25 12:34:26	w7zoi	Re: Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)
Hi all, I first encountered Pat Hawker’s Amateur Radio Techniques (ART) in the early 1970s and was immediately impressed by the technical flavor. Hawker read the amateur radio literature from numerous countries. He seemed to bypass those items that were mere “DIY” or introductory tutorial presentations. Rather, he abstracted those articles that had some technical message and presented these in his monthly Technical Topics column in RadCom. ART was a compilation of these articles. The first ART I purchased was the 3rd edition. Other editions were added later. DeMaw and I wrote SSD in the mid 1970s. One of the things that guided us was ART. Doug and I wanted to do something with similar depth, but we wanted to feature those things that reflected our own experiences. I was especially guided by the technical level. ART was a model that had a major impact on my efforts and is great reading, even today. I'd highly recommend it. 73, Wes w7zoi
13305	2016-11-25 15:32:26	Alberto I2PHD	Re: Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)

13306	2016-11-25 18:31:24	Ashhar Farhan	Re: Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)
Alberto, I am not sure that the RSGB has released ART for free distribution. We must seek clarity from the RSGB about it. Just that a book is available online does not make it ethical and legal to download and read it. This is unfortunately a frequent malaise in the online world. My parents have suffered piracy. They are both writers and their works have appeared online as PDFs. It is really leas about money and more about violation of author and publisher rights. There are some publishers like 73 magazine who have willingly put their entire archives online. we appreciate them. We must also appreciate that the sales of these classics also support the organizations that have produced these books. Often, it is their only source of income. ART was the first technical book that I read. I was twelve years old and it appeared on the shelf of the local British Council Library. It served me a very different purpose. Instead of full rigs, each article was about a single stage. Browsing through it makes one recognize the divide, measure and rule principle of radio engg. - f
13307	2016-11-26 06:38:43	Alberto I2PHD	Re: Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)

13308	2016-11-26 06:54:59	Alberto I2PHD	Re: Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)
I am not sure that the RSGB has released ART for free distribution. We must seek clarity from the RSGB about it. Just that a book is available online does not make it ethical and legal to download and read it. Just as a further comment... on Internet you can find and download hundreds of thousands of books in PDF format. It is not even thinkable that each time a person find one of his interest, he should contact the publisher and/or the author to check whether its public distribution was authorized... The sheer fact that the book is downloadable from a site with good reputation as e.g. archive.org, should constitute a warranty for the above. In case of a violation, only the Web site maintainer(s) should be considered responsible for the violation. I am not a lawyer (thanks God), so the above are just my two Euro-cents. -- 73 Alberto I2PHD Credo Ut Intelligam
13309	2016-11-26 07:14:34	Tony Fishpool	Re: Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)
It would take a huge stretch in intelligence to assume that Archive.Org (despite whatever reputation you think it has) to check everything it caches. A better yardstick might be, "is it a really awful scan", and if yes, "is it likely it came from the RSGB in that state or was it unauthorised?". Otherwise, if it walks and talks like a duck, it's a duck, - or in this case, a pirate copy and regardless of any website responsibility there is the question of the morals of the person downloading and spreading the information about its availability. - Tony G4WIF
13310	2016-11-26 08:36:35	Ravi Miranda	Re: Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)
Hi Farhan Just a thought, in all fairness one must and should ask the RSGB for permission if we were hosting that information on our site, however isn't there another POV that information should be freely available? In this case we are not making the information public, the information is there already, In the case here, Alberto is merely telling us that the information is here at this location, we could all look at it? Just asking. ~R
13311	2016-11-26 10:58:44	Ashhar Farhan	Re: Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)
Ravi, I do understand that free flow of thought is the basis of science and modern society as well. But Copyright does not impede it. It could even be argued that it encourages people to create knowledge and gain recognition for that by asserting their authority and ownership over the text. There is a matter of copyright, which is delinked from the information itself. For instance, one doesn't ask the EMRFD authors to use a published circuit in your own work/design. However, to reproduction a work in it's entirety is where copyright applies. Copyright protects a very specific, particular expression from unauthorized reproduction. Science presumes free flow of knowledge. Copyright's ethics are to provide author with control over the text, not the ideas communicated in the text. Pat's work did this precisely. He curated, rewrote and redrew circuits and techniques in his own words and presented it to the amateur community for review and application. One is free to read the ATA and write a critique of it but not reproduce it substantially. That said, it must be left to the authors to assert their own version of copyright. For instance, the GPL uses copyright law to enforce that any work derived from it will also be freely available under the GPL. I have insisted that if anyone reproduces my circuits, they should not modify it in anyway which includes the text that allows it to be freely reproduced. This is what programmers call a recursive definition. Finally, as a part of acknowledging the authorship over texts, we the readers, must agree to whatever terms the text is distributed under. - f
13312	2016-11-26 12:47:28	Alberto I2PHD	Re: Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)

13313	2016-11-26 12:56:14	Jim Strohm	Re: Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)
Did anybody actually look at the copyright notice on the PDF in question? It says "Seventh edition, 1980, reprinted 1991." So the effective copyright date is 1991. If you look at this in wikipedia (hardly the definitive source of anything) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_1976> you'll see that the copyright term for this work is -- well, you read it under "Terms of protection," the most mumbo-jumbo paragraph I've seen this holiday weekend (INCLUDING the egregious typo I found on the first page of a new ARRL pub) -- suffice to say, whether the copyright belongs to RSGB or to Pat Gawker G3VA (or his heirs or assigns) it'll be the better part of a century before this work enters the public domain in its entirety. So let's all huddle up again at the start of the 22nd century and revisit this again, OK? And let it rest that the current electronic distribution of "Amateur Radio Techniques, Seventh Edition" IS a copyright violation. 73 Jim N6OTQ not a lawyer, but a professional writer who's very involved in copyright issues and misuses
13314	2016-11-26 16:56:34	jim	Re: Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)
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13315	2016-11-27 10:40:39	Hans Summers	Re: Amateur Radio Techniques (RSGB book)
Hi all I don't have a comment on the copyright issue. But on the Tech Topics columns and the Amateur Radio Techniques books... I love them! These and EMRFD are my radio favourites. I have all the ART editions and all the Technical Topics Scrapbooks, as well as the Pat G3VA biography book, and the pages of all kf them are well-worn from plenty of reading and re-reading (as is EMRFD). I didn't know about the CD of all 50 years, I must buy that! Pat G3VA's tech topics column was the first thing I read every month when RadCom arrived. Often the ONLY thing (often the rest of the magasine content wasn't of interest). Pat's articles were really my inspiration in amateur radio. So much in those columns was of interest and often a little unusual which appealed to me. I used to call my first rig practically a love letter to Pat G3VA! My 1-valve (tube) CW TX http://hanssummers.com/cwtx was something I first came across in the Tech Topics column and so was my L-match ATU and Power meter http://hanssummers.com/atu . The receiver, well, that is a medley of stuff I read about in Tech Topics! See http://hanssummers.com/polyphase - "Tayloe Detector" front end, Huff & Puff VFO stabilizer, magnetic permeability tuning using a toroid in a magnetic field varied by the Huff & Puff feedback, and the polyphase network unwanted sideband cancellation. 73 Hans G0UPL http://qrp-labs.com http://hanssummers.com