From the ARRL Letter October 10:

73 MAGAZINE SAYS "73 AND QRT"

After completing 43 years of publication, 73 Amateur Radio Today
magazine is calling it quits. Plans to publish a joint
October/November issue fell through this week, and the September 2003
issue was the magazine's last. According to self-proclaimed "El
Supremo and Founder" Wayne S. Green II, W2NSD, it was a simple
matter of economics.

"After failing a last minute effort to collect on some larger
accounts receivable we decided yesterday to throw in the towel--
that the September issue will have to be the last," Green told ARRL
October 9. "SK after 43 years of publishing."

The first issue of 73 was published in October 1960 from what Green
--a former editor of CQ--once described as "a small, dingy
apartment" in Brooklyn, New York. Since the summer of 1962, 73 has
been based in Peterborough, New Hampshire--Green's home state. The
magazine was a pioneer promoter of SSB, FM, solid-state, easy
construction projects and the marriage of personal computing and
Amateur Radio. His interest in microcomputing led Green in 1975 to
found Byte, a magazine devoted to the then-nascent and largely do-it-
yourself computer hobby.

At the peak of its popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, individual
issues of 73 totaled more than 300 pages of ads, articles and
commentary. Heading each issue was Green's inimitable "Never Say
Die"--some would say never-ending--editorial, in which he
rarely missed an opportunity to tweak the ARRL and his magazine
competitors for their perceived shortcomings.

QST Editor Steve Ford, WB8IMY, says 73 published his first article in
the 1970s. "I was saddened to hear that 73 has ceased publishing,"
Ford said. "Wayne's excitement about the growing amateur FM repeater
phenomenon at the time was infectious."

Green's 73 editorials and regular round of personal appearances
originally concentrated on Amateur Radio and his ideas to improve,
advance and grow it. In recent years, however, they've veered into
conspiracy theories, cures for cancer, AIDS and other ailments and
Green's proliferation of book titles on those topics.

Green says he'll continue his essays on his Web site
http://www.waynegreen.com/ "for those subscribers who mainly
bought the magazine for them." He told ARRL that no definite
arrangements have been made yet about how to handle outstanding 73
subscriptions.

CQ Publisher Dick Ross, K2MGA, said he takes no joy from the passing
of 73. "The loss of any publication serving Amateur Radio leaves all
of us a bit poorer," he said. "Thank you, Wayne, for 43
entertaining, informative, sometimes infuriating, and always
interesting years of 73. We'll genuinely miss it."