[CQ-Contest] 73 Magazine Says "73 and QRT"

[Jim Reisert AD1C <jjreisert@alum.mit.edu>]

Source: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2003/10/10/6/?nc=1

NEWINGTON, CT, Oct 10, 2003--After completing 43 years of publication, 73 
Amateur Radio Today magazine is calling it quits. Plans to publish a joint 
October/November issue fell through this week, and the September 2003 issue 
was the magazine's last. According to self-proclaimed "El Supremo and 
Founder" Wayne S. Green II, W2NSD, it was a simple matter of economics.

"After failing a last minute effort to collect on some larger accounts 
receivable we decided yesterday to throw in the towel--that the September 
issue will have to be the last," Green told ARRL October 9. "SK after 43 
years of publishing."

The decision to pull the plug apparently did not come easily. After telling 
the League and others a few days earlier that 73 would cease publication 
because of insufficient advertising revenue, Green rebounded with plans to 
put out an October/November issue if 73 could collect the delinquent 
accounts. "With the hobby slowly dying, these are difficult times," he 
said. "But then, we've been through difficult times before."

Green's October 9 statement appears to be the final word on the matter, 
however. It also seems to leave remaining staff members and contributing 
editors--freelancers--out in the cold. One columnist reports not having 
been paid for several months of contributions.

The first issue of 73 was published in October 1960 from what Green--a 
former editor of CQ--once described as "a small, dingy apartment" on E 15th 
Street in Brooklyn, New York. Late-night radio personality Jean Shepherd, 
K2ORS (SK), was listed as a contributing editor. Copies cost 37 cents 
apiece, and subscriptions were $3 a year. By the time of its demise, the 
larger-format 73 Amateur Radio Today--which contained approximately the 
same number of pages as the first issue (64)--sold for $3.95 per issue on 
the newsstand, and an annual subscription was $24.97.

The magazine--which became virtually inseparable from Wayne Green 
himself--was a pioneer promoter of SSB, FM, solid-state, easy construction 
projects and the marriage of personal computing and Amateur Radio. His 
interest in microcomputing led Green in 1975 to found Byte, a magazine 
devoted to the then-nascent and largely do-it-yourself computer hobby. He 
sold the magazine three years later, and it continued publication until 1998.

Since the summer of 1962, 73 has been based in Peterborough, New Hampshire. 
After searching for bigger digs than what Brooklyn had to offer, Green 
determined that New Hampshire offered the best of all possible worlds, 
including cooler temperatures, cheap land, low taxes and access to the big 
city (Boston). For a time, the magazine flourished. At the peak of its 
popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, individual issues of 73 totaled more 
than 300 pages of ads, articles and commentary. Heading each issue was 
Green's inimitable "Never Say Die"--some would say never-ending--editorial, 
in which he rarely missed an opportunity to tweak the ARRL and his magazine 
competitors for their perceived shortcomings.

From day one, Green was the virtual heart and soul of 73, but for a short 
time--from the spring of 1985 until almost a year later--he was absent from 
the magazine, which, at that point, he no longer owned. CW Communications 
had acquired 73 along with Green's computer publications a few years 
earlier. He returned in full control of the publication in its March 1986 
issue, again vowing to turn the competition on its ear.

QST Editor Steve Ford, WB8IMY, says 73 published his first article as a 
freelance writer in the mid-1970s. "I was saddened to hear that 73 has 
ceased publishing," Ford said. "I was an avid 73 reader in 1971 when I was 
first licensed. Wayne's excitement about the growing amateur FM repeater 
phenomenon at the time was infectious."

Green's 73 editorials and regular round of hamfest and convention personal 
appearances--he was a Hamvention forum staple for years--originally 
concentrated on Amateur Radio and his ideas to improve, advance and grow 
it. In more recent years, however, they've veered into conspiracy theories, 
cures for cancer, AIDS and other ailments and Green's proliferation of book 
titles on those topics. Green has been an occasional guest on the 
<http://www.coasttocoastam.com/>Coast to Coast AM overnight radio talk 
program once hosted by Art Bell, W6OBB.

In 1996, Wayne Green Inc filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, but the filing did 
not affect 73. New Hampshire newspaper accounts at the time indicated that 
Green's wife, Sherry Smythe-Green, had purchased 73 two years earlier, and 
it's believed the magazine remained in her hands. The affected Green 
subsidiaries were Almost Free CDs, Uncle Wayne's Books, Creative Music, 
N.H. Language Systems and Green With Envy.

In 2001, CQ named Green to its inaugural Amateur Radio Hall of Fame, citing 
his roles as founding editor and publisher of 73, former CQ 
editor/columnist and publisher of Byte.

Green said he would continue his <http://www.waynegreen.com/>essays on his 
Web site "for those subscribers who mainly bought the magazine for them." 
He told ARRL that no definite arrangements have been made yet about how to 
handle outstanding 73 subscriptions. He said he does plan at some point to 
make available on a Web site "articles of lasting interest."

CQ Publisher Dick Ross, K2MGA, called 73 and Green "significant 
contributors to the history of our hobby" for more than four decades. 
"There's no joy to be taken from the passing of 73 magazine," Ross said. 
"The loss of any publication serving Amateur Radio leaves all of us a bit 
poorer."

Through the pages of 73, amateurs were able to access "a curious mixture of 
new ideas, not the least of which was the technology and fun of FM 
repeaters, which Wayne pushed relentlessly until the rest of the ham 
publishing community finally woke up," Ross said. "Thank you, Wayne, for 43 
entertaining, informative, sometimes infuriating, and always interesting 
years of 73. We'll genuinely miss it."
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