SC mag - Great guys - but whom?

I look at the infantile cartoons on many/most SC projects, shake my head and wonder who'd take something like that seriously. I certainly wouldn't. My 2c worth.

Bob

Hi Bob,

Well, I guess you're right with the head shak> >

I don't think there's an easy answer to the problems of hobby electronics these days, there seems to be a general lack of enthusiasm from all directions: component suppliers to magazines to even (dare I say it) the readers of the magazines. ETI with Roger Harrison seemed to have this enthusiasm coming at you out of the text of articles I read as kid and so did AEM as well. Ye olde digital projects circa the 70's and 80's would have bogged down magazines like EA as they shifted away from them over time possibly as resource sucking vampires (for magazine and constructor).

I wonder how many of those analogue synths were actually made from the ETI? articles at the time, not too many but the articles would have been a popular read.

Magazines these days would lose a fair bit of traditional revenue thanks to the Internet and the loss of electronics industries but there must be some way to get revenues up to the point where a magazine can be viable and offer some serious articles and projects with decent scope. I suspect if a magazine started selling PCB's of their projects then it would upset advertisers /suppliers doing the same unless they could come to an arrangement.

FWIW I should write up some of my projects on the 'net for other interested people, that way at least I get to retain the IP and may be able small amounts of money. Surface mount RISC circuits that can't be hand soldered and valve circuitry designed using SPICE are frowned upon in some publications if tolerated: kind of like the disdain for printed circuit boards when real men used tagstrip in the 1960's. Like in science, electronics gets new dang-fangled ideas as the old guard die off and the reactionary new tech gets a look in.

G'day Phil, I think you might be close to the truth. My problem might be that in a former life in public telecommunications, I was surrounded by Tektronix, HP, Fluke, AWA, Marconi and other professional test gear and electronic stuff. It was a serious business. None of it had sketches of cute little batteries or transistors etc... it was just mostly battleship grey professional gear which did the job required. So when I see those little characters, I think "toy" and disregard the whole thing. I think I'm getting cynical in my 'old age'. :)

Cheers Bob

I quite like the cartoons of the TV repairman though, the best ones being the weird expectations of customers.

I just loved the style and build quality of the Siemens & Halske "Peggelmesser" and "Peggelsender" :-)

No Bob, just a solid respect for good engineering and design functionality without any of the "frippery" some of the younger age group seem to delight in to adorn their electronics items.

Well gee Bob, that's a real bummer. I'll try and send you some cute little stickers for your gear - anything to cheer you up

David - just hav> ....I was surrounded by

At least the word 'wireless' is back in vogue ...

Me too! Brendan Ackhurst is a genius at doing that. :-)

Yeah, built like a German tank, with all those E88CCs (if I remember correctly) to keep you warm in winter. We had the Wandel & Goltermann solid state ones as well. Have you ever seen how many screws there are in their internal shielded assemblies?

Exactly. Could you imagine the RTV&H (or was it EA by then?) Deltahet receiver or B&W TV receiver etc with cute little pictures on their front panels? Things sure have changed since then.

uni -

Funny I've been on the net for over 17 years, and I know people who were on it before me. And of course it was the Uni's and Arpanet that led the way. (if you actually mean the world wide web, that is more recent of course)

But yes "wrt" was around pre internet, as were a lot of other acronyms, abbreviations, slang etc. The usage is just more common now, especially with SMS etc.

MrT.

The W&G stuff was equally as well built, and yes, I did have to pull one apart once to replace a board. I took a day to get it all apart and put back together.

The B&W TV was definitely an RTV&H project but I'm not sure about the Deltahet which came later I think.

I followed those articles with some interest in the late 50's and early 60's IIRC, even though I didn't have the wherewithall to attempt to build them. A trainee tech's wage wasn't that good.

I did build one of the dual wave receivers from RTV&H using a QPlus dual wave bracket which contained a 3 gang tuning capacitor and all the necessary coils etc ready built. Brilliant stuff then - still got the box it came in.

It took me a similar amount of time. :-) For a while I was doing instrument maintenance.

Them was the days, when Australia had an electronics manufacturing industry with a big skills base and there were lots of enthused hobbyists...

Speaking of web based publishing, I find it interesting that I make more money now from people who visit my web site to look at my projects than I ever made from getting the project published in the first place! You might be surprised at the amount of revenue a popular technical website can generate.

Dave :)

Interesting....tell us more?.

Do you have a URL....I can only find a link to you on Bob Parker's website and it appears to be broken. The only other one I can find is for some guy at the uni of Ohio. Have googled these broken links so far:

Ahhh here we go: a working link at airborn.com.au:

Perhaps they should hire those two kids in the current issue who won the schools contest? :->

Dave :)

hi, yeah who gives a toss about technicians ( no disrespect.) finding dodgey stuff, new developments in digital cameras that cost $5000+ , green house emissions ( yeah...sure..)

what u want is a purely hobbyist magazine with no frills .. purely project design and modification.

mark

And how long would that last before they couldn't pay the rent?

I have often wondered what their readership numbers are, and what the results of the last reader survey were.

Dave :)