Including covers, the current issue is 30 pages. There are 5 ads, one of which is ARRL and doesn't count.
Confronted by the removal of technical articles from QST, I requested that QEX be an available choice for member print publications. I am happy to say that was approved, though it has not appeared in any of the renewal forms yet.
I care far more about the technology of radio than I do about operating. "Wall paper" just never appealed to me. QEX is important to me. So how do we make it thrive?
The only way I can think of is to have more content over a diverse range of levels from the uber techno wonk of my Yagi-Uda post to simple stuff suited to, "I just bought a kit on ebay."
I must put myself first in line for the dock in the latter case. Most of the older QRP designs have output filters which do not meet the currently mandated standards. Despite that, they are being sold on ebay to novices who have neither the knowledge nor the test kit to determine that they are illegal. I did a bunch of work on the Chinese kits for the Pixie 2 designed by WA6BOY and posted it to EEVblog.
I contacted Kaz to see if that level of topic would be acceptable, but never got around to writing an article. I shall correct that omission shortly.
The sad fact of the matter is if the current readers of QEX do not help generate new readers and revenue, QEX will fade away and ham radio will drift even farther in the appliance direction.
Almost everything important to modern radio was developed by amateurs. Admittedly, many were professional electronics engineers, but it was what they did on their own time with their own money that made the technology we enjoy today. They cared enough to try what management would not fund.
What won't be developed because amateurs don't try it?
Reg
