[Amps] Sad State of the Hobby

[Jim Brown]

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