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Re: [Amps] Sad State of the Hobby

To: amps@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [Amps] Sad State of the Hobby
From: Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com>
Reply-to: jim@audiosystemsgroup.com
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 11:40:07 -0800
List-post: <mailto:amps@contesting.com>
On 1/19/2018 11:03 AM, Manfred Mornhinweg wrote:
I noticed a certain resistance by ARRL to publish
articles they deem "too difficult" for their readership. In other words,
ARRL was knowingly dumbing down their publications in order to keep them
accessible to the least knowledgable hams. And that was 20-15 years ago.
It seems that since then it only got worse.

Exactly right. There are few if any technically competent staff, and that includes editorial staff. I regularly cringe at gross errors in QST, and now rarely do more than skim it.

For many years, Ward Silver, N0AX, who took over as Handbook and Antenna Book editor when N6BV retired, wrote a monthly column that was almost the only QST technical content that could be trusted. Ward retired from that column last fall. A few years ago, AA7JV, a well-known DXpeditioner who is an excellent engineer, published the design for his very nice "garden beam" in QST.

As far as i can tell, there is almost no technically competent review of content for the periodicals other than the peer review that an individual author may solicit on his own. I've had none for any of the half dozen or so pieces I've written for National Contest Journal, but one piece was rejected not on content, but because it would require too much work by the league's graphics staff. I've worked extensively with N0AX on a half dozen chapters of the Handbook, the Antenna Book, and his new book on Grounding and Bonding, and I know that he circulates his material to engineers for peer review, chosen by topic.

73, Jim K9YC

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