Ham Magazines

[flintstone mop]

Hello All,
What is out here for Ham radio magazines, besides ER and QST?? 73 magazine said "73" in 2003.  Do they have any interesting articles about Hamming in CQ besides contests?

Thanks
Fred

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Use the eham reviews for many of the Amateur Radio Periodicals:
http://www.eham.net/reviews/products/46

You can review the CQ Mag. May 2006 and June 2006 Table of Contents here:
http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com/

[flintstone mop]

Thanks Mr Pete..............The ALL SEEING EYE   

[K6IC]

And,  Fred,

There is always QEX,  a great mag for hammie technical and construction -- 6 issues per year and well worth it.

And,  Pete,  UR avitar is way cool.  On one topic,  you made 2 successive posts,  and there was a pair of vertical eyeballs scanning the shack.  'Twas  FB.

Vic  K6IC

[NE4AM]

There is also World Radio, and Nuts and Volts.  While Nuts and Volts is not a 'ham' magazine, it the only magazine that has an emphasis on construction and electronics design.

[k4kyv]

There is always QEX,  a great mag for hammie technical and construction -- 6 issues per year and well worth it.

It's a  ripoff.  ARRL used to feature the technical and construction articles in QST.  Then some genius decided to take the technical stuff out of QST and put it in a separate publication that you have to pay extra for - even after paying the ARRL annual dues, leaving little more than contest and "human interest" drivel in QST.  Almost all the ham radio news in QST is stale by the time the magazine reaches readers, since the information will have appeared on the internet days or weeks before the magazine arrives in the mail, making Queer Street Times nothing but a waste of good trees.

I have been a League member for decades, but I refuse to pay extra for what I should already be getting for the money I pay them every year.

[WA1GFZ]

Don,
I am not a member and get QEX the rest is a waste of time and money.
One of the guys at work gave me a year's worth of qst and went through them in one lunch break. I suggested to ARRL qex should come with membership also if they wanted to add to their ranks because qst is useless.

I'm considering joining TAPR real talent! Cool kits.
They just teamed with HPSDR gang.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

There is always QEX,  a great mag for hammie technical and construction -- 6 issues per year and well worth it.

It's a  ripoff.  ARRL used to feature the technical and construction articles in QST.  Then some genius decided to take the technical stuff out of QST and put it in a separate publication that you have to pay extra for - even after paying the ARRL annual dues, leaving little more than contest and "human interest" drivel in QST.  Almost all the ham radio news in QST is stale by the time the magazine reaches readers, since the information will have appeared on the internet days or weeks before the magazine arrives in the mail, making Queer Street Times nothing but a waste of good trees.

QEX has been around since 1981. It caters more to higher technically oriented material and builders who have a high degree of building skills. Since the demographics of their membership have probably become less technically oriented over the last 25 years, it was a good move to make it into a separate publication. It actually filled a void for many technically oriented who might have felt lost after Ham Radio Magazine no longer was produced. Since the hi-tech/builder group is probably considerably smaller than what it was 30, 40, or 50 years ago, it probably makes sense to QST management to move it to a separate publication. There’s still construction articles each month in QST. See Table of Contents, June 2006, http://www.arrl.org/qst/

There's probably still lots of hams out there that don't have internet access.

I have been a League member for decades, but I refuse to pay extra for what I should already be getting for the money I pay them every year.

Roughly 50% of yearly dues goes for membership fees and the rest for QST. But membership also allows access to a wealth of info on the ARRL "members" section including downloading of QST and QEX articles. As an example, see http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/reflections.html
There's a lot of  material available for "members only". It sounds like you're not putting all that's available to you to use.

And now you get all the QEX articles from 1981 - 1998 on a CD for about $40.

[k4kyv]

[ But membership also allows access to a wealth of info on the ARRL "members" section including downloading of QST and QEX articles. As an example, see http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/reflections.html
There's a lot of  material available for "members only". It sounds like you're not putting all that's available to you to use.

So what you are saying is that if I am a member, I can download any article that appears in QEX, off the web, without paying anything extra beyond my normal membership dues?

I am not a member and get QEX the rest is a waste of time and money.
One of the guys at work gave me a year's worth of qst and went through them in one lunch break. I suggested to ARRL qex should come with membership also if they wanted to add to their ranks because qst is useless.

If I understand you correctly, you  can subscribe to QEX without being a member of the  League?

[Pete, WA2CWA]

[ But membership also allows access to a wealth of info on the ARRL "members" section including downloading of QST and QEX articles. As an example, see http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/reflections.html
There's a lot of  material available for "members only". It sounds like you're not putting all that's available to you to use.

So what you are saying is that if I am a member, I can download any article that appears in QEX, off the web, without paying anything extra beyond my normal membership dues?

Not quite. Selective articles available for downloading (members and non-members) are available from the Technical Information Services (TIS) area that I believe is run by Ed Hare's group. Go here, and click on any of the highlighted links in the TIS Page Menu:
http://www.remote.arrl.org/tis/tismenu.html

The Technical Information Page is also a good place to get an overview of some of the technical information that's available "for members only".
Go here: http://www.remote.arrl.org/tis/

I am not a member and get QEX the rest is a waste of time and money.
One of the guys at work gave me a year's worth of qst and went through them in one lunch break. I suggested to ARRL qex should come with membership also if they wanted to add to their ranks because qst is useless.

If I understand you correctly, you  can subscribe to QEX without being a member of the  League?

Yes, that is correct. Go here and review the subscription form and charges:
http://www.arrl.org/qex/

The history of QEX is also interesting reading. Members can also search the Index Files and the are lots of downloadable files. Most of these files are supplements to the articles that were written in QEX. If you move to the right of the screen where there are pictures of QEX Magazines, each one has a sample file you can review.
Copies of articles that aren't available off the page link listed above  or the TIS pages are available for a fee. Also, we can get all the QEX mags. from 1981 to 1998 on a CD-ROM.

This was interesting from the history section:

" In January 2000, ARRL purchased the Amateur Radio technical journal Communications Quarterly from CQ Communications and merged it with QEX, creating the combined QEX/Communications Quarterly. Published for the preceding nine years under the editorship of Terry Littlefield, KA1STC, Communications Quarterly billed itself as the philosophical successor to ham radio magazine, which was founded by "Skip" Tenney, W1NLB, and Jim Fisk, W1HR. Littlefield was ham radio's Editor when CQ Communications purchased it in 1990."

[WA1GFZ]

Don,
Anyone can download sample QEX articles. My 75 meter class e final was last nov sample article. It brings me email form all over the world. Last week I got a note from a guy in India. ..

[k4kyv]

Jim Fisk's Ham Radio magazine was the gold standard of amateur radio publications.

It was a good magazine with mostly technical articles, but unfortunately, Jim Fisk was strongly opposed to AM, and rarely if ever had anything good to say about the mode.  He pretty much bought into Johnny Johnston's bandwidth argument.

I recall when Docket 20777 came out in the mid 1970's, which would have outlawed AM on all amateur frequencies below 28 mHz, the magazine ran a brief news item to the effect that "amateurs running AM roundtables on 160 metres are just discovering their peril." 

At that time, the power and frequency restrictions on 160 due to LORAN were fully in effect, and most AM activity was on 75, with some additional activity on 40, 20 and 10.  There were a few AM groups on 160; indeed much of the phone activity on topband was AM simply because at that time most of the so-called "all band" hf SSB appliances covered 80-10m only, and amateurs had little choice other than to run vintage commercial AM equipment or homebrew.

Fisk refused to publicly acknowledge the renewed interest in AM on the HF bands, so the article was given a spin to imply that AM was used only by a few obscure groups hanging out on secluded portions of 160m.

73 Magazine was a decent publication decades ago, although Wayne Green had a tendency to go on "kicks"...His rambling editorials about cold fusion, cancer "cures", and just about everything else except amateur radio conveyed the message that he should perhaps be in a nice home where those nice, young men and women in the clean, white coats won't let him handle hot liquids or sharp objects.

Don't forget his campaign to expose the moon landings as fake.

[WA1GFZ]

I used to get ham radio but when ARRL bought th erights to H.R. I got QEX.
I think CQ only had it a short while and drove it into the ground with stupid regen RX articles. That was the gold standard but I must admit QEX is doing a great job.
QST also does not burn well so low btu content making it lower than crap.
Arrl figured the members would buy two rags and they could bring in more money to support the useless suits.

[w3jn]

I drove it into the ground with stupid regen RX articles.

I love ER but they seem to be going down that path as well.  I'm getting REALLY tired of the interminable regen receiver articles.

[Carl WA1KPD]

Mr. Green......began seeing little green men in his cornflakes. His rambling editorials about cold fusion, cancer "cures", and just about everything else

He is still at it.even has a blog!.....http://www.waynegreen.com/

[KB2WIG]

looks lik he's mellowed....    klc

[k4kyv]

Agreed. On today's crowded bands, a regen receiver is worse than useless.

I think the  regen articles are intended more for historic and nostalgic reasons than to be used as a station receiver.  But one can learn from the experience, especially if they haven't ever built anything before - so I wouldn't discourage that.  If the magazine is going overboard on regen receivers, maybe it's because not enough people have contributed articles on other topics.

A  regen may not be as bad as you think.  I was surprised at the preformance of a National SW-3 that a friend owed.  If you set it just below the point of regeneration, it would suck AM signals right out of the background noise.  It was probably as good as many of the low-end superhets I have tuned.  It also had very smooth tuning and regeneration control.

I later acquired that same receiver, but it needs a lot of restoration work.  The original owner died, and it went through a couple of other owners before I got it, and evidently was left in a damp environment for a long time.  Now there is a lot of corrosion, the tuning dial has some kind of mechanical probem and won't turn the full 180 degree rotation, and some of the coils were lost.

I have hopes of restoring it someday and fabricating some replacement coils.

[w3jn]

All great, Don, but how many articles on the damn things do we need?

[WA1GFZ]

My days with the GR64, q multiplier and regen RF stage was like driving Flash Gordon's space ship it sucked.

Nothing like a good premium RX

[w3jn]

Life's too short to mess with crap.

[WA1GFZ]

You got it John.
i'm glad to be rid of old junk receivers. They are nice to look at or operate on a Sunday afternoon but so isn't a model A.