Not exactly the Christmas present some of my fellow radio hobbyists would like, but it now seems that beginning next year, there no longer will be a hobby radio magazine in print.
The magazine I have written for since 1996, National Communications Magazine, converted from print to digital (PDF) at the beginning of this year. Before the year went out, Monitoring Times magazine folded as its long-time publisher, Bob Grove, decided to retire. A successor magazine, The Spectrum Monitor, staffed primarily by former writers for Monitoring Times, launched its first issue a few days ago and is digital (PDF) only.
Now comes word that Popular Communications Magazine basically is being killed off and being blended into CQ Amateur Radio Magazine — kind of. Pop’Comm subscribers will receive issues of CQ in the mail beginning with the February issue and will receive access to a new digital publication called CQ Plus that will contain content from not only Pop’Comm, but also CQ VHF and World Radio Online. The latter three publications are being blended into the digital supplement to CQ and effectively are dead.
I was a columnist for Pop’Comm from 1982-1996 and also did some feature articles for the magazine in the past few years (until they got too far behind on payments to me). I also served as the magazine’s editor from 1995-1996. The magazine just celebrated its 30th anniversary, but it is no more.
I haven’t gotten too crazy about PDF publications. I never remember to download them or I don’t take the time. It’s not like them coming in the mail. I’m going to have to figure this out! Apparently the December issue of Pop’Comm has not been delivered to subscribers yet, and my guess is there are money problems in Hicksville (N.Y., where the magazines are based). Actually, as I look through my stack here, the last issue I received was in October. 😦 Something is terribly wrong.
I have every issue of Pop’Comm and Monitoring Times (which I also wrote articles for over the years) printed, for whatever it’s worth. They’re dinosaurs in the digital juncle now.
In addition to my QCWA (Quarter-Centurty Wireless Association) membership, which also went from print to digital for its publication, and my life membership in the American Radio Relay League, which at least still prints its QST magazine, but also can be downloaded in digital form, I need to learn to read PDFs and not magazines. I think the industry will evolve further at some point to paywalls and web-based publications that are updated on the fly, and I probably would be more responsive to that type of a “publication,” per se.
Anyway, here’s a link on the discussion on the conversion of Pop’Comm to digital: http://forums.radioreference.com/amateur-radio-general-discussion/280552-cq-magazine-realignment-coming-feb-2014-a.html
And here’s the table of contents to the new blended CQ Plus digital publication that will debut in February: http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com/cq_highlights/2014_cq/2014_02_cq/2014_02_cq_tof.html
I’d be curious as to your thoughts and comments on this change. It’s huge. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, my fellow radioaficionados. 73 de N2DUP
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