On Jan 24, 11:38*am, "
wrote:
On Jan 23, 9:47?pm, John Smith I wrote:

* *That may start a whole new juicy thread of Flame War as the
* * fedayin of the morse mavens rise up from the ashes of their
coded* glory, sort of like a "Feenix" that was once the home
town of one Hashafisti Scratchi.

Gotta explain that last for all you young squirts of fiftysomething
or less...

One of the independent ham magazines, may have been CQ,
used to carry a column in the back of each issue around 1950
to 1960 time, written in pseudo Japanese-American dialect by one
"Hashafisti Scratchi" who "lived in Feenix, AZ." Always the same
small art work portraying "Hashafisti" as a grinning boob in front
of his radio set.

I used to think it amusing before I enlisted in the US Army and
spent three duty years in Japan. Afterwards, I didn't think it so
funny and, at times, appeared racially biased. Some of the points
the real author was trying to make got lost in the improper pseudo-
Japanese-American "language."

Looking back at that period, and for a couple decades following,
that sort of racial bias pervaded American amateur radio
periodicals. The hobby was mainly MALE and WHITE with only
a scant few exceptions. That can be seen in thousands of photos
of hams there were depicted in all of those periodicals...male and
white. Clear evidence that, untouchable being preserved on real
paper with real ink (unlike the ephemeral computer "records").

Such rather obvious gender and racial bias continues in US ham
radio publications today. It's obvious that some of the more vocal
of the hammus americanus breed in newsgroups keep on with it
and adding the idocy of "morally proper" sexual practices...indeed
expanding that to "morally proper" any-kind-of-practice nonsense.

If the remaining publishers manage to squeeze out enough ad
revenue to survive into the future, they had damn well ought to
LEARN to be more liberal when it comes to readers and
subscribers. This old bull**** of always pandering to the OLD
and overly-venerating long-ago times is going to be their ending.
Firstly, those that love the olde-tyme pandering will decrease
due to simple facts of actuarial tables. Secondly, the advertisers,
those who REALLY pay for each issue's production, are going to
find BETTER venues to spend their advertising money; they are
the ones producing and making the cutting-edge-of-technology
radio systems, not a bunch of nostalgia buffs longing for the
days of their long-vanished youth.

Only PART of your lead-off posting was tongue-in-cheek. The
reality is that the number of US amateur radio specialty
magazines has been continually shrinking despite an expansion
not long after the end of WW2. CQ was - apparently - the first
of the post-war independent magazines, followed (or preceded,
irrelevant) 73. Both enjoyed a growth period of a couple decades.
Ham Radio was a late-comer but that technically-oriented
independent publication managed to make a profit for 22 years.
HR had to fold for only one reason: lack of attracting ad space.
73 quit later for the same reason. CQ started, and then dropped
CQ VHF. Same reason, not enough ad revenue for the publisher
to make a profit. QST has hung in there for only ONE reason:
it is the membership magazine of ARRL members and can point
to all its members as being the magazine's demographic base.
However, ARRL membership is slowly decreasing, not increasing
and the League hasn't taken much effort in attracting HALF of all
US amateur radio licensees...the Technician class. The Tech
class has always been growing since the original no-code-test
class was created in 1991...so much so that it became de facto
the "entry level" class, far surpassing the constantly-decreasing
Novice class (the supposed entry-level).

A lot of US radio amateurs think mistakenly that their subscription
fee "pays for all the magazine content." NO WAY. Subscription
fees go instead to what the periodical industry calls "fulfillment,"
the costs involved in mailing, maintaining subscriber lists,
reminders of subscription termination coming up, and the grunt
work of putting real ink on real paper, then sending it out en masse
to distributors. The income publishers get goes to the magazine
staff (the paid workers), maintaining their offices and equipment,
compensation for authors, and all the assorted little costs of
staying in business. Author compensation in the hobby activity
area is minimal, even if the author gives up all "first rights" and
subsequent rights for reproduction.

To explain more, "first rights" by a publisher is fairly standard;
they get the (copy) right to publish a work first. Usually that
also involves the right to reprint it as many times as they want
in the future. Normally, an author can get sale rights such that
they can LATER publish it with anyone the author cares to go to
(and be accepted by another publisher). The good publishers
usually compensate authors when reprinting material later, giving
them (a small pittance) some monies for that reprinting. The
ARRL is NOT anywhere close to being that generous...not only
do they demand first-rights but they keep all subsequent repro
rights in anything they press out. To add to that is that they
seldom, if ever, give the author credit for a reprinted work and
if reprinted, just say it appeared in a previous edition. Anyone
selling to ARRL will NOT make any monetary profit and such
work is solely for the author's emotional sustenance.

What appears to readers is that "the ARRL did all that
marvelous radio gear and instruments seen in Handbooks
(all by itself)" but hundreds and hundreds of individual
authors did. There's some sign that the League is relaxing
those "rights" for compensation, but not enough. Yes, they
can do whatever they want to, perfectly legal of them to do
so. But, the other side of the ARRL house is supposed to be
the all-seeing, all-knowing, "we KNOW what is best for [US}
amateur radio" membership organization. There's a deep
dichotomy there, border-line hypocrisy on (elusive) SPIRIT.

With the (final) legalization of FCC 06-178, the League might
wise up, see some light, and do some CHANGE of its
attitudes. I am very pessimistic on that but miracles have
happened. The League must change to fit the times. They
can't run around fat and happy on nostalgia of the prioneering
days of the 1930s with "spark-gap experiments" featured as
the Latest, Greatest State of the Art re-creation. The Great
Battle Re-Enactors do it for fun and can't possibly change
history of who won and who lost. Neither can the ARRL hold
back the dawn and refuse to recognize that over half of US
radio amateurs just don't give a **** for morse code...and the
US government agrees.