OOPS actidently hit send on the earlier post, this is how the previous
posting should have been...

Johan's and John's comments both copied below say it all.

Don't be put off by the need for house styles etc - if you do look at
the articles that have written it in the past, they were all in the
authors' own words with a little editorial help occasionally.  The
peer review is more or less a rubber stamp if the article in
straightforward and constructional - (if, for example, it happened to
be about about zero loss infinitely small magnetic loops that would be
a different matter :-)

As for the need for repeatability, say so.  If you've done a one-off
with components from the junk box it is more than likely to be of
interest still, and that  won't stop the editors / TC;  but be
prepared for a lot of questions, some silly, some sensible,  from
constructors

 I've been following the way this thread has developed with
considerable interest, and am actually rather pleased that the problem
appears to be worldwide.  Now I do know its not a personal Radcomic
thing, but is part of a more general malaise.

So which of these are valid, I wonder :

1)  No one is actually doing anything interesting technically, so
there is nothing to publish.

2)  With the appearance of really advanced commercial kit taht
couldn't be home-made, constructors are losing confidence in their own
abilities, so are afraid to show what they are doing in case others
ridicule it.

3)  No technical articles published = "They don't want to publish
technical stuff" = "Its not much point sending anything in, then"

4)  Technical articles are being written, but placed on personal web
sites and not properly distributed.

1)  1) is clearly rubbish.
2) I know can be a bit worrying, but discussion amongst other
like-minded people soon shows that what appears to be really high tech
IS NOT.  Its just throwing a lot of money and development time at a
simple problem to make it smaller and more GUI-fied
3)  Well ... we see it hapenning.
4)  There's something in this, too.  But it does lead to a very small
select audience, and you don't get paid for it.

They DO WANT TO PUBLISH TECHNICAL ARTICLES (shouting intentionally),
but can't if nothing gets written-up.   Positive feedback is setting
in, and we're going to end up with 'comic content hitting the supply
rails with nothing more than contest results and amateur-radio
celebrities.  Alternativly, it could go unstable - any ideas where
that could lead?

Andy  G4JNT

www.scrbg.org/g4jnt


>
> >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.
>
>
> On 29/10/2007, Johan H. Bodin <[email protected]> wrote:
> > John, LF,
> >
> > you may wish to have a look at QEX, http://www.arrl.org/qex/
> >
> > If you accept a paperless forum, there is a Yahoo group called EMRFD at
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/emrfd/ . It was started by Roger KA7EXM
> > (W7ZOI's son). I found the group yesterday (!) so I don't know much
> > about it yet, but the authors of the book EMFRD (Experimental Methods in
> > RF Design) seem to be active on the mailing list, including the
> > legendary Wes Hayward W7ZOI himself. The group has about 500 solder
> > melting members, it certainly looks promising :-)
> >
> > 73
> > Johan SM6LKM
> >
> > John Pumford-Green GM4SLV wrote:
> > > BTW does anyone know of something along the lines of a QRO version of
> > > SPRAT? A magazine for tinkerers in the RF arts?
> >
> >
> >
>