[ARC5] CQ, hr magazine etc.

[Ken Kinderman]

I purchased a complete set of hr Magazine, 1968 to 1990, from ARRL a few
years ago. It uses the "aview" program that they used for CD-ROM QST's.

I called them a few weeks ago to see if there is an updated version of the
viewer and they told me no. In fact, they said, QST is no longer available
on CD-ROM.. only to members off the website.

A quick check of the ARRL Store web page shows that hr Magazine CD-ROM's are
still available, presumably with the clunky old viewer (sorry, PC only, no
Mac).

I agree that the early CQ's were great. In many ways better than QST because
CQ wasn't afraid to print crazy construction articles that, unlike QST's,
didn't require a full machine shop and metal bending machines.

Of course, CQ and 73 can be blamed, for better or worse, for all those
"remove all parts and drill a big hole in the front panel for a S-Meter"
surplus conversion articles. But they were right for time. QST studiously
avoided that stuff except for a novice conversion of a BC-696, and APX-6
conversion, and maybe a few others. (A late 1940's article in QST put the
kiss of death on the BC-191/375 by calling it "unstable" in their bench
testing, when in fact, their problem was probably poor power supply
regulation.)

CQ can still be downloaded on the Buckmaster website, page by page.

Now, 73 magazine was another great construction magazine. But you had to
wade through those endless, fine-print, Wayne Green polemics. I'll say this
about Wayne, he did put out magazines that had real world practical
articles.

I can't say there was one best magazine ever, because each had its strengths
from 1945 through the late sixties. I looked forward to every issue of each
one of them.

But I began to tune out after all the FM repeaters, sardine cans, and
contest scores began to take over. But hey, life changes and so does ham
radio.

hr Magazine probably couldn't survive today. What could they write about?
There was an hr cover that was probably more prophetic at the time than any
of us could have known: a guy sitting at the kitchen table with a
screwdriver, a tiny crackerbox VHF radio, cover off, and a few screws
scattered around.The table is covered with and overflowing with a huge
unreadable tiny-print schematic diagram. The guy is just sitting there with
a bewildered look on his face...

73,

Ken
W2EWL