Al wrote: [snip]
Was it better (cheaper, smaller, sounded better...) than a commercially available non-transistor radio?
You still can. Things have moved on, so we build different things these days. The components are much better though. I built a PVR (digital video recorder). I didn't make the motherboard, or the CPU, or the RAM and I didn't write most of the code (I did write some though, and I spent a whole lot of time making the damn thing work) - but I bet you didn't make your own transistors or capacitors or invent much of the circuit topology for your radio either. I also build boards for my robots - not from discrete components, but from micro controllers, integrated H-bridge drivers, packaged power regulators and the like. Why not make it all from discretes? Same reason you didn't make your own transistors.
All the time! Go to an R/C hobby shop, the place is full of 'em. Go to a place they fly gliders, the sky is full of 'em.
Perhaps because the cheap planes suck?
Tim