{"id":2428,"date":"2017-11-05T19:28:12","date_gmt":"2017-11-06T03:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.k6bj.org\/?p=2428"},"modified":"2017-12-07T23:08:08","modified_gmt":"2017-12-08T07:08:08","slug":"catalogs-are-about-possibilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/archives\/2428","title":{"rendered":"Catalogs are about possibilities"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Catalogs are about Possibilities<\/h4>\n<p>Dan Romanchik, KB6NU<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2431 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/allied-1968-e1509998747208.jpg\" alt=\"allied-1968\" width=\"200\" height=\"258\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2432 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/lafayetter-1968-e1509998718527.jpg\" alt=\"lafayetter-1968\" width=\"200\" height=\"280\">When I was a kid, I used to regularly get catalogs, such as the Allied Radio and Lafayette Radio catalogs shown below, and pore over them for hours. Even if I couldn\u2019t afford to buy the latest Knight-Kit or Lafayette shortwave radio, I could imagine what it would be like. These catalogs were chock full of possibilities.<br \/>\nI spent many hours poring over the Allied and Lafayette catalogs as a kid.<br \/>\nThese two are from 1968, when I was 13 years old.<br \/>\nSo, you can imagine how I felt when, last Thursday, I found both the Autumn\/Winter 2017 DX Engineering catalog and the 2018-2019 Newark Electronics\/element14 catalog in my mailbox.<br \/>\nDX Engineering has really taken the amateur radio world by storm over the last ten years or so. I probably don\u2019t have to tell you about that. If you\u2019re an active amateur radio operator, I\u2019m sure that you have heard about\u2014and probably ordered from\u2014DX Engineering.<br \/>\nI think that DX Engineering did a very smart thing by investing the money in a print catalog. There\u2019s something about browsing a print catalog that is just more satisfying than browsing online.<br \/>\nDX Engineering has just about everything you need to have fun with amateur radio. The one glaring &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;omission? They still don\u2019t carry my study guides!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2434 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Element-14-e1509998678683.jpg\" alt=\"Element-14\" width=\"200\" height=\"176\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2433 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/dx-engineering-2017.png\" alt=\"dx-engineering-2017\" width=\"200\" height=\"259\" srcset=\"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/dx-engineering-2017.png 200w, https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/dx-engineering-2017-100x130.png 100w, https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/dx-engineering-2017-150x194.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/>The Newark\/element14 2018-2019 catalog is a completely different beast. Amateur radio operators are only a small part of Newark\/element14\u2019s market, but one nonetheless. They have, for example, attended the Dayton Hamvention for many years.<\/p>\n<p>As such, the catalog is not a \u201cham radio\u201d catalog, but if you build stuff at all you\u2019ll find something of interest in its 1,799 pages. It includes nearly any kind of electronic part that you might need.<br \/>\nThe section that might you might want to start with is the \u201cmakerspace\u201d section. In this section, you\u2019ll find Raspberry Pis, BeagleBones, and even micro:bits. They really have everything, though, including passive and active components, connectors, cable, and enclosures.<br \/>\nLike I say, these catalogs are all about possibilities. You can search each company&#8217;s website and find the parts they carry quickly and easily, but that experience is just not the same as browsing a print catalog and daydreaming about what you might find there.<br \/>\nSo, get your own copies\u2014they\u2019re free\u2014and page through them. I\u2019d be surprised if you didn\u2019t run across something that you didn\u2019t know about before, and it gave you some ideas about your next amateur radio project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Catalogs are about Possibilities Dan Romanchik, KB6NU When I was a kid, I used to regularly get catalogs, such as the Allied Radio and Lafayette Radio catalogs shown below, and pore over them for hours. Even if I couldn\u2019t afford &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/archives\/2428\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Catalogs are about possibilities<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-november-2017"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2428"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2441,"href":"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428\/revisions\/2441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k6bj.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}