I think the sugggestion of eliminating QEX/NCJ and putting them into QST
deserves a bit more thought.
Certainly there are fixed costs involved with having multiple magz that
would be eliminated entirely. Then we are faced with the difference in per
page costs between QST and the others.
Have the Board considered making QST production cheaper per page, rather
than going for elimination of content (which has the concommittant effect of
lower advert prices and thus revenue - it's a spiral), holding per page
costs constant or increasing?
Just to use an extreme example to make the point, what if QST were published
using the same style, paper, and overall publication quality as NCJ? What
would the cost per page be then?
Yeah, it wouldn't look as nice, but the contents would be superior (more
content) and the advertisers the same or even broadened. From a readership
perspective, it would be all inclusive, which means we'd be exposed to
contesting, moonbounce, construction articles, technical discussion, station
improvement designs, ... all of an advanced nature. I for one would LOVE
such a magazine since it would expose me to the many different facets of the
hobby in a non-trivial way.
I'm suggesting more than just backing off from the full-color decision.
Dunno. Maybe the magazine manufacturing outfits would view such as pub as
requiring special setup and thus cost more. But has anyone considered
recombination of NCJ/QEX/QST and cutting back on production costs?
Gary W2CS
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-cq-contest@contesting.com
> [mailto:owner-cq-contest@contesting.com]On Behalf Of Tom Frenaye
> Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2002 9:15 PM
> To: cq-contest@contesting.com
> Cc: Bob Johnson
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] QST vs. NCJ
>
>
>
> At 08:05 PM 1/12/2002 -0500, K1VU wrote:
>
> >Being a Life Member of the NRA since 1963 I can only say that
> one of the worst
> >things the NRA did was to fractionate the membership into "Us
> and Them" when
> >they came out with "The American Rifleman" and the "American
> Hunter" option
> >for the membership !!!
> >
> >I see the ARRL doing the same thing right now !!!
>
> Actually, ham radio has divided into lots of interest groups over
> the past 20 years, and instead of standing together we often
> fight among each other. Take a look through the QST Section News
> column for all of the people involved in emergency communications
> and the other volunteer programs in the ARRL Field Organization.
> There are precious few callsigns you'd recognize from contest
> QSOs - yet they are as active or more active on the air than most
> contesters are. Every group wants more QST space for their specialty.
>
> >I would like to see the League get rid of the NCJ and QEX and
> put the pages,
> >money and coverage back into QST !!! Add QST pages not cut
> them. Get more
> >advertising revenue for a single publication that encompasses
> ALL aspects of
> >Ham Radio !!!
>
> I checked into the economics of doing what you suggested. It
> doesn't look good. The advertising sales for both NCJ and QEX
> would allow for only six more pages of content in QST - maybe one
> long technical article.
>
> The advertisers would probably not move their advertising to QST
> because with the specialty publications they can reach their
> targeted audience with a larger advertisement and much less cost.
> For the most part, the things published in NCJ (48 pages) and
> QEX (64 pages) would not be published at all otherwise.
>
> -- Tom
>
>
> =====
> e-mail: k1ki@arrl.org ARRL New England Division Director
http://www.arrl.org/
Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444
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