Peter O. Brackett wrote:

I would be willing to write such an article for QEX, however... not
without an invitation to do so. An unsolicted contribution would be a
lot of work on the part of anyone who undertook such a project and it
might all be for naught.

Personally I wouldn't do so without a clear indication from the editor
that such an article could be published. This is simply because time
is valuable and the fear that an unsolicited manuscript might be be
rejected simply because, although interesting, it would be of little
interest to the amateur radio community.

Looking at this from a writer and an editor's point of view (though
obviously not speaking for the editor of QEX)...

First of all, QEX is not an academic journal but a technical magazine.
The difference is that an academic journal has a guaranteed income from
college libraries, and thus can publish material that is stunningly
boring, provided only that it's original and of high academic merit.

QEX on the other hand has to earn its living by publishing articles that
are *interesting* and *useful* to subscribers. Every single issue will
determine whether a substantial fraction of subscribers decide to renew,
or not. This cold commercial fact tends to concentrate the editor's mind
- and it also improves the quality of articles that he or she chooses to
publish.

Editors don't like giving open-ended invitations to writers whose work
they don't already know. On the other hand, they love receiving e-mails
asking if they'd consider an article on a certain subject. The more
professional you are about this, by justifying why that article would be
interesting, outlining the topics you'd like to cover, showing that you
understand the needs of the magazine, and estimating an overall length
that's appropriate to both the topic and the magazine... why, the more
they'll like you.

Oh, by the way, that e-mail will also be read as a sample of your
writing style...

But even then, no editor will say "Go ahead - you write it, we'll
publish it." No self-respecting editor ever *should* say that! The best
any author can legitimately expect is an enthusiastic promise to
"consider it". It's then up to you to write an article that the editor
cannot refuse.

I can however provide professional technical references to anyone who
might have a sincere interest in learning about such things.

Very few people - even in this learned newsgroup - would be interested
in learning about the subject for its own academic sake. But enough
people have become intrigued by the topic of complex Zo to feel the
foundations of our understanding(?) of transmission lines shifting
underneath us. We now need to know which of the formulae and
relationships that we've been using are universally correct, and which
of them are actually only approximations. An article with that focus
really *would* be interesting!

An article really is needed now. Sorry, Walt, we can't go back to sleep
- the genie is out of the bottle, and only more understanding (not less)
will put it back. Reg's program is not the solution either. I'd trust
that particular program all the way, but I also want to understand
*why*, and using a program won't show me that.

What's needed here is more like an academic review article. Such
articles don't normally contain new, original results. The originality
of a good review consists in pulling together existing results from a
whole field of study and *explaining* what they mean.

Reviews generally shouldn't go into the same heavy detail as the
original references. For this particular topic, the mathematical level
of a magazine article would be a make-or-break issue... and another very
good reason why editors always say "Show me first." Academic papers tend
to deal in high-level general concepts that are already familiar to
academic readers, but that is not appropriate for an amateur readership.
To emphasize the difference, it's not that amateur readers are stupid
(far from it!) but that very few of us have covered this particular
academic territory. As an author, don't take us into there unless
there's absolutely no other way. If the same results can be obtained
using lower-level concepts such as Ohm's and Kirchhoff's laws, then -
for this readership - that's how it should be done.

The existence of academic papers would allow you to skip over some of
the heavy math, and keep your article interesting and moving forward.
For example, it's legitimate in an article of this kind to work with a
simplified example of a complex-Zo problem, derive a useful result, and
quote a reference that proves (at the expense of much heavier math) that
that result is actually a general one. A review-type article is one of
the few cases where the notorious "it can be shown that" is actually a
legitimate and useful tool to keep your story moving.



--
73 from Ian G3SEK 'In Practice' columnist for RadCom (RSGB)
Editor, 'The VHF/UHF DX Book'
http://www.ifwtech.co.uk/g3sek