Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 08:14:29 +0000
From: John Pumford-Green GM4SLV <gm4slv@sighthound.demon.co.uk>
To: rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org
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On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:57:06 +0100
"Chris Trayner" <C.Trayner@leeds.ac.uk> wrote:

> Dear Johan,
> 
> 
> Thank you for your email.
> 
> > "Radcomic" is becoming too much of an advertisment 
> > orgy! ... I don't want to pay for these ad's anymore...


> Forgive me for pointing it out, but you're not paying for the ads.
>

Hello LF,

Whilst we might not be paying the advertisers for the ads I think
Johan's point was "I don't want to pay money to the RSGB to receive the
ads".

I've just flicked through this month's rather poor RADCOM and make the
following observation:-

Ignoring the "pull out and throw away "Radio Sport roundup"

Total Pages         93
Pages of RSGB's own Ads     9
Pages with commercial Ads   28
Pages with technical content    15

Regular columnists, news, product review a large, and to me
irrelevant, story about yet another a DXpedition and letters etc make up
the rest. 

Of the technical content "Technical Topics" made up 4 of the
pages, leaving 11 spread over :-

EI9GQ's excellent "Homebrew"    4
SDR             2
Technical Correspondance    1
Antennas            2
In Practice         2

None of the technical articles were actual "one off" or
from a series of articles, they were the normal regular content.

I've often wondered about writing something for RADCOM but have
been put off by the need to conform to some house style, to pass
some form of "peer review", and for constructional articles to be
provably repeatable (don't want the little dears to go to the trouble
of buying a soldering iron and some BC109s only to find it doesn't
work first time.... )


What we need is something like SPRAT, but on a bigger scale and
not just for QRP, where the construction projects are more like
"here's an idea I've had, I got mine to work using the following
circuits/components. Use it as a starting point for your own
experimentation." 

The writer can happily assume that the reader has some technical ability
and can source components themselves and can fault find and fiddle and
alter things for their own particular needs. Of course if a particular
component is vital to success then by all means indicate a source for
it, but assume the reader has a junk-box and knows how to use it!

RADCOM will never allow this kind of article.


Just my thoughts...


RADCOM has had some great construction projects in recent years - the
PiC-a-STAR for example. I had no intention of building one but enjoyed
reading the articles nonetheless.

4 pages on "how to fit a PL-259" sums up the current need to meet the
aspirations of its current readership I'm afraid.

Cheers,


John GM4SLV