From: "Phil Clements" <philc@texascellnet.com>
> My guess is that c. WW II, several experts took jobs at ARRL HQ at a pay
> rate much lower that industry standard at the time because they loved the
> work. We were getting more bang for our buck as members of the League. As
> they retired, their established standards of technical excellence seemed to
> fade away slowly over the years.
Back in the day you could fit all current League publications on a small
bookshelf. Starting in the 80s they went on a publishing bender, but didn't
significantly increase the size of the editorial staff. (I shouldn't bite the
hand that fed me, as I participated in that bender, but oh, well...) While many
of the books were simple anthologies, there were enough new titles to seriously
stress the resources. And there are fewer editors there now than even, AFAIK.
Add to that the on-going battle between Operating and Technical, which goes all
the way back to the days when Jim Lamb, then a League employee, devised a SSB
transceiver that never saw publication because the guy in charge thought it was
too difficult for the average ham. That was in the late 1930s. (See the article
by John Nagle in Ham Radio magazine, September 1984, for the gory details.)
"New adopters" and the rich have always been the driving forces in ham radio,
which perhaps explains the dearth of newcomer-oriented articles over the
decades. There were brief periods of exceptions, following the introduction of
the Novice license in 1954, and a short time when Doug Demaw was Technical
Editor in the 70s and 80s. More recently, a pseudo-technical article which
presented only a block diagram and some tabulated performance measurements won
the Cover Plaque award.
You can subscribe to QEX, but that increases your annual outlay to the League.
Were I not a life member I would probably subscribe to QEX, but not bother
joining, because QST is not very interesting to me. I know all the reasons why
League membership is a good idea, but money doesn't grow on trees, even on the
Treasure Coast.
The result of ARRL's erratic interest in technical publishing has been a
plethora of alternate organizations to fill the gaps, such as AMRAD, TAPR,
AMSAT and the avid QRP community. There are pluses and minuses for the ham
community in this fragmentation, but it probably hasn't done the League any
good, fiscally at least.
Fortunately, we now have the Internet, and anyone anywhere can publish a
construction project. Readers must sift through them with care, but IMO there
is more good information on AMPS in a month than anyone can assimilate, and
there are plenty of places online to obtain construction information on
amplifiers, without paying close to $40 for a Handbook. Perhaps ARRL should see
the writing (HTML?) and focus more on its core competencies. The problem with
that is, the publishing arm is a profit center, and almost everything else they
do results in a net loss in revenue.
73,
Jim, KR1S
http://kr1s.kearman.com/
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