[RFI] "LED noise"

[Hare, Ed, W1RFI]

I have grown a LOT since the days in the 1960s when I saw QST as holding tremendous articles that helped me learn.  QST was just perfect for me as an "average" ham back then. It still is.  But Jim, you and I are not average hams. We have grown to the point where the articles that were so exciting to us when we were learning may interest us less now.  If QST had evolved to follow my progress in learning about amateur radio, it would be way over the heads of the average reader we once were.

I also noticed another phenomenon.  I was remembering the best of the best of those old articles, and projecting that "best" back onto the entire era.  I went into the ARRL Library and looked at older issues and noticed that yes, the best of the best where there, but so were some articles that, with today's eyes, looked pretty ho-hum to me.  As I flipped through the issues, there were a few that taught me nothing new.

Your premise that QST is edited by non-technical editors is just plain wrong.  If you had looked at the QST masthead you would have seen the it contracts three exceptionally competent technical editors, engineers all, with some pretty significant accomplishments in their careers and within amateur radio. It is incorrect to make the claim that you made, inappropriate and disrespectful to the organization and the three very competent editors who put a lot into ensuring that QST is technically correct.  The staff editors also have access to the ARRL Laboratory staff, with world-class expertise in things like RFI and equipment testing.  The editors also maintain a cadre of volunteer technical advisors that offer input as needed in their specific areas of expertise.

QST is a membership journal, and other than a few columns, consists of articles submitted by members. These, too, are subject to technical review, by the Lab staff and that cadre of technical advisors.  The League can only publish what it receives, and although the editors, especially the three technical editors, do shake the bushes to find good authors, but if those that can write articles (or criticize the articles that are actually submitted...) don't actually send them in for consideration, what the critics think should be in the magazine won't appear in the magazine.

I think that QST is essentially doing now what it did in the "good old days," and that is to appeal to the average ham and his or her current interests.  If hams aren't designing and building new projects now, the articles won't be submitted and thus won't appear in QST.  It's that simple.  And if hams aren't designing and building as many projects now, then a smaller number of today's hams want to build their own equipment, so the range of incoming articles is one sample of what the staff editors can use to judge what amateurs are interested in.

So, Jim, it's not as simple as you seem to be conceiving it to be, and not nearly as bleak as you put it forward to be.  It is just that you and I have grown past what QST needs to continue to be -- a membership journal that is useful to the average ham in finding things he or she can do within amateur radio.

I am not a member because of QST. I am a member to support ARRL's work in advocacy, participation in industry committees, interface with the FCC, its programs of outreach to teachers to bring amateur radio into classrooms and a host of other things that go way past what is put into a general-interest magazine.  The League spends real money to make all that happen and the only reason you have seen me participating strongly in IEEE standards work is that 160,000 hams chipped in to make it happen.  I am glad that QST will help new hams, the same way it helped me when I was an inexperienced newbie.

I felt compelled to respond to correct the out-and-out inaccuracies in some of what you had to say, Jim, but I also note that this is an email list about RFI, and that continuing this discussion should not continue here.

Ed Hare, W1RFI
ARRL Lab Manager

________________________________
From: RFI <rfi-bounces+w1rfi=arrl.org at contesting.com> on behalf of Jim Brown <jim at audiosystemsgroup.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2022 11:10 PM
To: rfi at contesting.com <rfi at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [RFI] "LED noise"

Dave,

You and I are old enough to remember when QST was edited b active hams
who were technically competent. A typical issue had several articles
about things you could build, and they worked. It's been quite different
since I got back on the air in 2003. QST is edited by "magazine" people,
and last I heard, there was no review by anyone who was technically
competent. Ward Silver, N0AX, who has edited the Handbook and Antenna
Book for more than ten years, and written the Grounding and Bonding
book, had a column that was the only thing in most issues you could
count on as being solid science. Ward retired from that column several
years ago. George Wallner, AA7JV, wrote a great piece on an easy to
build vertical Yagi. Several years ago, there was a good piece on RF
absorption in dense forests. Other than a few examples like those, it's
been pretty slim pickings. And I see stuff that causes me to cringe in
almost every issue that I take the time to skim.

73, Jim K9YC

On 12/20/2022 7:20 PM, David Eckhardt wrote:
> Well.........  Compare the present QST with those of some 2 or three
> decades ago.   Nothing but pablum in the recent issues.



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