[Boatanchors] May QST...Devoted Entirely To Amateur Radio ADVERTISEORS

[EP Swynar]

Good Day All,

I just got back from a visit to the public library in a nearby town here...

It's a nice place to visit from time to time because they receive QST magazine every month, & I like to review each issue as it comes out...sure enough, they had the May 2006 copy on the shelf...

But what an absolute shock as I leafed through it! Was it my imagination, or is almost the entire second half of the magazine this month "...Devoted Entirely To Amateur Radio ADVERTISERS"...?! Page after page consisted of NOTHING but full-page, colour pitches from different manufacturers --- no continuations from previous articles in between...no nothing! 

I could hardly believe my eyes. 

Reading earlier pages, I saw that the write-up on the results of the November Sweepstakes contest was, well, hardly a write-up at all --- any curious non-contestor Newbie scanning the summary would probably be left wondering what all the fuss about this contesting stuff was about: there wasn't much of anything there to entice the newcomer to wade in --- heck, there wasn't even enough there to entice any repeat efforts on the part of existing contestors! 

Just where were the complete score summaries, anyway...? No doubt off tucked away in some web site someplace (or perhaps available by way of a paid subscription to The National Contest Journal), but they SHOULD be included in QST, the way they were since the magazine first started. Period.

I know a lot of guys will take this opportunity & accuse me of League bashing, etc., but come on, fellas: what's happened to my once beloved QST magazine? I have nearly every issue going all the way back to 1916, but this latest "offering" is hardly worth the effort. 

Surely Hams deserve better than this.

~73~ Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ