Mike wrote, in part:
>The ARRL may be "all (we've) got" but that sure doesn't mean we have to
>like it. ..............snip......... As an ARRL
>life member (which I became >20 yrs ago in high school) I must say that
>the quality of QST's technical articles has gone down hill as ARRL's
>size has grown (it has, hasn't it?) The technical and competitive
>aspects of amateur radio must now be addressed in separate magazines
The ARRL membership is evidently shrinking, per info from them. Also,
as new Tech's far exceed the number of new licenses of other classes,
the ARRL has found that few Techs become members, and most,
when they do, do not renew after the first year or so. Another
problem is the decrease in applicants appearing at VE session,
down around 25%.
Thus the "thinning" of QST. Also, numbers of advertising pages has
dropped in QST. Ad rates are lower in the specialized
magazines, and, in some smaller outfits with ads in
NCJ , QEX, never did have ads in QST, too costly, I guess.
For example, consider the February issues of QST the last
few years:
February 1996.......208 pages inside the covers, ads on all
but 89 pages, or 119 pages with ads (free new product
announcements appear on several of the 89 editorial article
pages; these are manufacturer's press release items, used
by magazine editors as filler, to complete a page at the
bottom, etc.).
February 1997......192 pages, ads on all but 83 pages(again,
some "free of cost" new product announcement items appear
on many of the 83 article pages). and 109 pages with ads--10
fewer ad pages than the previous year, 6 fewer article pages.
February 1998........176 pages, ads on all but 73 pages, and
103 pages on which ads appear, 6 fewer than the previous
year, 10 fewer article pages.
February 1999.......160 pages, ads on all but 65 pages,
and 95 pages on which ads appear, 8 fewer than previous
year, and 8 fewer pages devoted only to articles/news.
Or, now 24 fewer pages devoted to news and articles
only!! So DX listings, propagation predictions, etc.
are now gone, along with shorter section news
items and such like.
So, over the three elapsed years from Feb. '96 through
to Feb issue '99, pure article/news content pages within
QST have dropped 23%, and pages carrying ads have
dropped about 20%. And the overall magazine has
shrunk 23% in page count.
Loss of advertising revenue, together with fewer members,
while lobbying activities may have in fact increased, not
sure, and today's higher employment costs, including
higher payroll taxes/FICA/HMO, etc. result in fewer
pages and services. However, it seems to me that
services to members are still pretty high.
I have not done a close look at article technical content/
quality issues, but much of the stuff in the Feb. '99 issue
appears to be pretty good quality. Maybe I should do a
comparison of technical article pages vs. more news
type article pages. I suspect they publish what is made
available to them, also. If the overall technical skills
of our ranks should drop, and it is from the ranks that
much of the technical material comes, then the quantity
and quality both of such will surly also go down.
Just some thought about why the shrinking of QST magazine.
73, Jim, KH7M
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