Jim,
You said it right about the publishing arm being a profit center there. Here's
what I've always thought. They try to not re-write the handbook at all if they
can keep from it. The reason is, that the time it takes to edit costs money. If
you can sell the same book year after year while just changing the cover, your
making way more money than editing it and showing new stuff. Oh, they add new
stuff, but it's a small amount, or just enough to make another edition. That's
like software. You write it once, and sell it there on out as straight profit.
Some touts upgrades when basically it just bells and whistles to make folks
think they're getting something better for their money, and a reason to keep
buying. I've opened up too many handbooks, and seen that year after year they
publish the same articles, especially on amps. Maybe every three years you'll
see a new one pop up published. Luckily, I have an electronics supply here that
stocks them so I get to look at what's inside be
fore I buy. Others don't have this luxury, and are disappointed when they open
their new handbook and see it's the same warmed over stuff from the year
before. The handbook needs to be gone over from front to back I think, but I
highly doubt I'll ever see it.
That's like the new amp book they published. It's just republished material
from the handbook I've heard from several hams, and not nowhere worth the price
they ask for it. I'm waiting on a copy to come up on ebay for say $5 to buy it.
If I remember, they didn't have much on tube amps for 80-10 meters at all. Some
on here reviewed it, but can't remember who.
Best,
Will
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 4/26/06 at 6:56 PM jkearman@att.net wrote:
>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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