On 7/29/2012 12:00 PM, Richards wrote:
QST is INTENDED to APPEAL TO THE MASSES.
It was not always so. See the email from Art Davis, quoted below.
It is supposed to have
something for everyone ranging anywhere from the novice to expert
designer. The novice-level articles are intended for dummies like me!
I don't think any of us would take even the slightest issue with the
inclusion of articles for beginners and those with less technical
education. But ham radio is NOT CB RADIO -- our licenses and privileges
are based on the premise that we have a TECHNICAL interest in radio, and
we must pass a test showing that we understand both the "rules of the
road" with respect to using the privileges granted by our license and
the TECHNICAL fundamentals of radio and electronics. It is the EXCLUSION
of articles with any technical meat that bothers me (and Art Davis).
My objection to QST are : 1) that there is almost nothing of interest to
those beyond the beginner level. Indeed, the uniformly excellent pieces
by Ward Silver, N0AX, are specifically tutorial in nature, and are
written to help those without heavy technical background learn useful
technical things 2) in almost every issue I see technical errors that
cause me to cringe. 3) All the technical content that USED TO BE in QST
where the entire membership saw it is now shunted to QEX, which is a
separate extra cost subscription and which has a far smaller
readership. There is also some good technical content in the National
Contest Journal, also an extra cost subscription.
I am far from alone in my disgust. I received this yesterday. Art says
it better than I did, and in greater detail.
73, Jim K9YC
= = = = = = = = = = =
To expand a bit on the last point. I totally support the efforts made by
ARRL to provide the newcomers and non-technical readers of QST some
page-space. But in the last few years it has gotten to the point where
the whole magazine is "dumbed-down" (I hate that term, but it works)
where all you get for your subscription dollars is a ton of advertising
(still almost half of the pages) and a load of 3-page articles on how to
construct a half-wave dipole in your closet. I'm just glad I have QST's
back to the 1950's to keep in the "reading room".
Just looking at a May 1959 QST, selected at random from the bookshelf,
the index lists 5 major areas of interest; Technical, Beginner, Mobile,
Operating, and General. There are 13 articles listed under Technical and
just one under Beginner. The Beginner article is a good one though, on
how to convert a BC-454. In addition there is the ever-popular Hints and
Kinks, which in my opinion where a lot of the "technical" articles in
today's QST would have ended up back in the day. But the Technical
section is by far the most prominent section in the magazine with
construction articles like "Transistor Transmitter for 50 Mc." and
"Simplified Product Detector Design". There were 108 pages of meat (in
really small text I might add) and about 50 total pages of ads. But even
most of the ads were keepers. All those beautiful pictures of Heath,
Collins, Johnson Viking, Hallicrafters, Hammarlund gear, and of course
Eico, Eimac and ElectroVoice.
OK, enough of that, I've already shown more of my age than I intended!
73, Art
N4UC
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