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Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:05:33 +0200
From: Rik Strobbe <Rik.Strobbe@fys.kuleuven.be>
To: rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org
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Dear all,

I don't know about RSGB and RadCom but I am closely involved in UBA =20
and it's magazine (CQ-QSO).
There are probably as many opinions about the contents of a magazine =20
as there are readers. So a good editor should try to keep the balance =20
between all those interests.
For CQ-QSO the "mix" is more or less 1/3 UBA affairs (informing =20
members), 1/3 non technical stuff (DX-pedition reports and other "easy =20
reading") and 1/3 technical stuff. Even within the technical stuff a =20
balance has to be found between various topics and levels. Not easy at =20
all ...
But the main problem to maintain this "mix" is the input of articles. =20
The UBA affairs part is more or less produced automatically (as the =20
output from discussions, meetings etc.). Further we receive plenty of =20
"easy reading" stuff, so no problem to fill that part. But it is an =20
endless struggle to get good technical articles. And no input =3D no =20
output ;-)
As said, I don' know about RSGB and RadCom, but I wouldn't be =20
surprised if the situation is similar.
So maybe everyone who feels that there must be more technical articles =20
should think about writing one ?

A simple "math exercise" we once did:
- CQ-QSO is a bi-mothly magazine and has 44 pages =3D 264 pages/year
- UBA has about 3000 members
So if every member would write a 1 page tech article every 10 year we =20
could fill our magazine from the first to the last page with tech =20
artciles.

Being more realistic: assuming that
- 10% of our members (=3D 300) is technical involved
- we want to fill 1/3 of the magazine (=3D 88 pages/year) with tech stuff
- the average tech article is 3 pages (=3D 30 articles/year)
Again it comes one 1 tech article (per technical involved meber) every =20
10 years

Sounds so easy .. but is so hard.

73, Rik  ON7YD

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