How much of QST's content is now ephemeral?
 

The recent discussion of the "online" version of QST had me thinking of
this.

Articles in QST used to be pretty much complete and self-contained.

Construction articles had complete schematics and parts lists, even PC
board layouts when needed. Technical articles might have some footnotes
and references, but they were to real books that you could buy or find
at a decent library.

Now, much of the meat of many articles is contained in random Web sites,
many not managed by ARRL, with no guarantee that any of it will be
findable after even a year or two.

--
Bert Hyman W0RSB St. Paul, MN

How much of QST's content is now ephemeral?
 

On 1/17/13 1:02 PM, Bert wrote:
The recent discussion of the "online" version of QST had me thinking of
this.

Articles in QST used to be pretty much complete and self-contained.

Construction articles had complete schematics and parts lists, even PC
board layouts when needed. Technical articles might have some footnotes
and references, but they were to real books that you could buy or find
at a decent library.

Now, much of the meat of many articles is contained in random Web sites,
many not managed by ARRL, with no guarantee that any of it will be
findable after even a year or two.


I think you make a good point. Unfortunately, IMO QST has become a
shadow of its former self. Not to be an OF (altho I probably am), the
QST of the 70's and earlier was much more substantial. It may be largely
due to hams doing less construction than in the old days. And often
software is a large part of everything these days. It's difficult to
distribute software in a print medium so it pretty much has to be
on-line. For better or worse, that's the way of the world now.

73.... Mark AA7TA

How much of QST's content is now ephemeral?
 

On 1/18/2013 11:50 AM, MM wrote:
On 1/17/13 1:02 PM, Bert wrote:
The recent discussion of the "online" version of QST had me thinking of
this.

Articles in QST used to be pretty much complete and self-contained.

Construction articles had complete schematics and parts lists, even PC
board layouts when needed. Technical articles might have some footnotes
and references, but they were to real books that you could buy or find
at a decent library.

Now, much of the meat of many articles is contained in random Web sites,
many not managed by ARRL, with no guarantee that any of it will be
findable after even a year or two.


I think you make a good point. Unfortunately, IMO QST has become a
shadow of its former self. Not to be an OF (altho I probably am), the
QST of the 70's and earlier was much more substantial. It may be largely
due to hams doing less construction than in the old days. And often
software is a large part of everything these days. It's difficult to
distribute software in a print medium so it pretty much has to be
on-line. For better or worse, that's the way of the world now.

73.... Mark AA7TA


I think you have good points, Mark. However, I also think the costs of
printing have gone up, which makes it more expensive. Also, back in the
70's we didn't have the internet, so either you got the layouts, etc.
from the article or had to send away for them.

I think a good middle ground would be for the ARRL to post this
information on the ARRL site, so they can control how long it's
available. It would save printing costs yet still be available for
years to come.

And yes, I do look back. Recently I was looking for a simple DTMF
decoder. Remembering a number of them from the 70's through the 90's, I
did some digging around and found a number of them. Not exactly what I
was looking for, but they gave me enough ideas that I was able to put
something together on a breadboard. Not neat, but it works. Maybe
eventually I'll get around to etching a board for it, but probably not.
It works fine as it is :)

--
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Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry, AI0K

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