When I was a kid, I used to regularly get catalogs, such as the Allied Radio and Lafayette Radio catalogs and pore over them for hours. Even if I couldn’t 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.
I spent many hours poring over the Allied and Lafayette catalogs as a kid. These two are from 1968, when I was 13 years old.
So, 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.
DX Engineering has really taken the amateur radio world by storm over the last ten years or so. I probably don’t have to tell you about that. If you’re an active amateur radio operator, I’m sure that you have heard about—and probably ordered from—DX Engineering.
I think that they did a very smart thing by investing the money in a print catalog. There’s something about browsing a print catalog that is just more satisfying than browsing online.
DX Engineering has just about everything you need to have fun with amateur radio. The one glaring omission? They still don’t carry my study guides!
The Newark/element14 2018-2019 catalog is a completely different beast. Amateur radio operators are only a small part of Newark/element14’s market, but one nonetheless. They have, for example, attended the Dayton Hamvention for many years.
As such, the catalog is not a “ham radio” catalog, but if you build stuff at all you’ll find something of interest in its 1,799 pages. It includes nearly any kind of electronic part that you might need.
The section that might you might want to start with is the “makerspace” section. In this section, you’ll find Raspberry Pis, BeagleBones, and even micro:bits.
Like I say, these catalogs are all about possibilities. Get your own copies—they’re free—and page through them. I’d be surprised if you didn’t run across something that you didn’t know about before, and it gave you some ideas about your next amateur radio project.
RickB KA8BMA says
Don’t forget the Heathkit catalogsand the advertising section of the Radio Amateur’s Handbook.
Paul - K9PLG says
I always return from Hamvention with a few catalogs every year.. A lot of vendors will send you one just for asking or only charge a $1. They are nice to have around… I remember drooling over the Heathkit catalogs years ago.. it was like the Sears Wishbook for Hams , if you’re old enough to remember the Wishbook hihi.
73 de K9PLG
Bob - W2TAC says
So very true. Those Allied, Lafayette and Heathkit catalogs fueled dreams. And some things — radio catalogs, QSLs, and books — are still better in print IMHO.
Randy W6OKK says
The Allied/Lafayette catalogs reminded me of my freshman year in high school when my dad got tired of me messing with his old Zenith Transoceanic suitcase radio (I could swear it was a better radio than any that I’ve had over the years). He offered me a proposition: save up half the cost and he would chip in the other half for a receiver of my own, We ended up getting a 4-tube 17-transistor Lafayette Explor-Air Mark V five-band radio. I remember vividly the day I came home from school and there was that big box, sitting on the dining room table. Dad made me wait until he got home from work before I had my very first OOB experience (OOB – Out Of Box). We hooked it up to the long wire we’d raised the previous weekend, and all the stations that came booming in!
I don’t remember what happened to that radio – I just remember its knobs rolling around in my desk drawer for years afterward. As a result of all this nostalgia I just put in a bid on eBay for exactly the same model – ‘works like new’ and the pictures look very clean. $10.00 was the opening bid – pennies compared to my half of the full purchase price of $50 back in 1969. I’m gonna win, and I can’t wait!
Randy W6OKK says
And $50 would be about $340 in 2017 money. Wow! Unimaginable – including the concept of the year 2017. Where are the flying cars?