[Amps] Plate Impedance, ARRL

[Jim Kearman]

From: "Phil Clements" <philc at 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/