Several folks have written concerning the QST article(s).. Here's
some observations:
1) QST is intended for general readership and one goal is to
encourage folks to get on the air. To that end, their goal would not
be well served by article that insisted that nothing is worth doing
unless you can implant 120 radials a full wavelength long of the
finest oxygen free copper, carefully implanted into precision sliced
turf, which is watered by an automated system, and that's only for
those pikers that can't afford to copper plate the back 40 of their
saltwater marsh with the full sized vertical array for 160m. <yes, I
am exaggerating, but you get the idea..>
2) I think that even QST's editorial board would concede that QST's
technical review standards are uneven. I don't think anyone should
be under the impression that it is a "rigorously peer reviewed
journal", or, for that matter, that there is extensive technical
review, other than for obvious errors. (I can cite specific examples
over the past few years of blatantly incorrect and/or unsafe
practices, if you like.) Hey, they have a limited budget, and they
essentially have to live what contributors are willing to write. I
suspect that would be counter productive to start coming down too
heavily on would-be contributors for technical review:
a)it would slows down the process (e.g. it takes a year to get
published in an IEEE journal, if you're lucky)
b) it would be frustrating and discouraging to the authors, who are
doing the writing out of love, not as their full-time day
job. Nobody will earn a living from writing for QST, even if you
wrote every article in every issue.
I would gripe more if things with technical inaccuracies appeared in
QEX, for instance, because the expectations are higher.
3) Hey, if you're a competitive sort, why not let the unwashed masses
believe something they read in QST, when you know better, and can
whip the pants off them as a result. Maybe these articles are a
carefully laid plot to encourage the competition to do something wrong?
4) With respect to the change over the years in content (often
described as "lots of pictures of appliances, less technical
content"): In these internet days, there's lots of other sources for
information, some better, some worse. The function of a ARRL
magazine as a "technical journal of record" is fading away, replaced
by books, websites, and so forth. Partly this is because the level
of integration of the components has increased (not many folks
building CW keyers with discrete transistors to make the flipflops
these days, I suspect), changing the fundamental nature of "radio
experimenting and homebrewing". Partly this is because the nature of
Amateur Radio itself has changed in the last 30-40 years.
One doesn't look to back issues of QST for design information so much
any more. This is particularly so for cases where the materials and
component technologies have greatly changed. One wouldn't look at
transistor equipment designs from issues of QST in the 1960s or
1970s, except as a matter of historical curiosity. One thing that
does get lost, however, is the "design wisdom" that is embodied in
some of those articles, particularly if you are restoring old
equipment or updating a design. Some years back, someone wrote about
"improving" a decades old design for a tube amp HV powersupply that
had the probably undesirable side effect of greatly increasing the
stored energy, so that a flashover in a tube would destroy the tube.
I'm sure the original designer had originally traded off the ripple
and stored energy and cost, either explicitly, or by the use of rules
of thumb from the era.
Interestingly, since this is "towertalk", and antennas are the
subject, it's an area where people pretty much build antennas the
same way as they used to, so designs from older times are still
useful. However, the analysis tools and understanding of interactions
of the design parameters has greatly increased. A design that might
have been done by rules of thumb and tedious trial and error back in
1965 might, in fact, benefit from modern modeling tools and optimizers.
Jim, W6RMK
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