wrote:

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.

Your story might be cause for concern if it were not for the fact that
there have never been any prohibitions on amateur radio licensing for
women and minorities. There is nothing wrong with being either
Caucasian or male. If I'm not mistaken, you yourself are both.

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.

I'm sorry that you've discarded your morals, Len. I'm sticking with the
"idocy" of believing in morally proper sexual practices. By the way,
even deviates are not precluded from obtaining amateur radio licenses.

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.

Pffffffft!!!!! Now THAT was funny!

This old bull**** of always pandering to the OLD
and overly-venerating long-ago times is going to be their ending.

I've stopped venerating those old people who feel some compelling need
to tell and retell the glories of their rear echelon military days of
over half a century ago. I'll pander to you no longer.

Firstly, those that love the olde-tyme pandering will decrease
due to simple facts of actuarial tables.

It is peculiar how those actuarial tables work, Leonard. When I was
licensed, there were oodles of old timers licensed in the 1920s. There
are very few of them left. Decades passed and I'm now an old timer.

If you obtain that "Extra right out of the box", the actuarial tables
say that you'll never be able to achieve old timer status.

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.

A guy who buys an HT or an FM mobile radio with a mag-mount antenna
isn't going to be the guy who makes it happen for the advertisers, Len.
Those aren't the folks buying the "cutting-edge-of-technology". This is
simply another instance of you not knowing what you're talking about.

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.

It is relevant, Len. 73 magazine didn't come into being until 1960.
Wayne Green was a former editor of CQ. He was fired.

CQ didn't suddenly come into being after WWII. It was the old "Radio"
magazine pre-war, produced on the West Coast. It was bought by Cowan
Publications and moved to New York.

Both enjoyed a growth period of a couple decades.

CQ grew for at least four decades. I have no idea what present
circulation is.

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.

That's a big problem.

73 quit later for the same reason.

Not really. It's problems were that Wayne Green grew old and
increasingly irrational. He sold the magazine and then bought it back.
It was too late to turn it around.

CQ started, and then dropped
CQ VHF. Same reason, not enough ad revenue for the publisher
to make a profit.

That's another of your factual errors, Len. You were right as far as
you went, but you didn't go far enough. CQ VHF has been back as a
quarterly publication for some time.

http://www.cq-vhf.com/

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.

QST isn't "hanging in there" at all. It does quite nicely. It is full
of advertising. The reason it has done well is that it is the premier
amateur radio publication in this country.

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).

The Technician Class license became the entry level license because
short-sighted folks like Fred Maia pushed for the Novice Class to be
done away with. The codeless Tech license never granted any HF
privileges. It was a dead end ticket.

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.

Thanks for your lesson in how the ARRL keeps QST coming.

Author compensation in the hobby activity
area is minimal, even if the author gives up all "first rights" and
subsequent rights for reproduction.

CQ has paid pretty well over the years, better than Ham Radio and better
than QST.

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.

That isn't the case, Mr. PROFESSIONAL writer. You have to know what you
are selling and you have to outline your terms. Reprint rights are
generally separate though a magazine may insist on buying first rights
and reprint rights.

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.

If you don't know what rights you are granting when you sell the
article, don't cash the check.

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.

Anyone who sells an article to the ARRL makes money from his article.

It is true that in the past, the League did not pay at all for articles.
Having one's material published in QST was deemed reward enough. Times
changes and the League now pays. They probably don't pay enough to have
you grace them with your material. Ah well, that's really your point,
isn't it?

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.

Not enough for whom, Len?

Yes, they
can do whatever they want to, perfectly legal of them to do
so.

It is only legal if you have agreed to the ARRL's terms. You do know
what you are agreeing to, don't you?

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.

There must have been a point buried in there somewhere. I'm damned if I
could find it. Where's the deep dichotomy? Where's the "border-line" or
borderline hypocrisy?

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.

Does it matter whether you are pessimistic on matters concerning the
ARRL? Are you a member?


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.

It is evident that you don't read QST.

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.

The U.S. government agrees that over half of U.S. radio amateurs don't
give a **** for morse code? Recent comments to the Commission say
otherwise.


see IEEE Code of Ethics

Dave K8MN