It’s great! Well done. As far as a 16 year old calling anything lame? Lol must have lost track of the 46 year old. Poor child with nothing to do but pick a banjo on the back porch for 30 long years…
On the air is a great mag for all, especially new hams without an Elmer. If you're an extra, ya you'll be bored with it. If you're a General who go your license the same day you got your Tech...maybe there's still some some informative write-ups in it for ya... It's everything the publisher claims it is..a magazine for beginners/newbies or whatever term you use. period, full-stop.
Personally I wish they'd combined OTA with QST, because QST is becoming too full of older article reprints these days. Hey, that's nothing but cheap and easy content for the ARRL and I for one would much prefer to have new content, new graphics, on a variety of even "beginners topics" as a part of QST. Let's avoid the temptation of reprinting oldies but goodies . . . heck, if someone wanted to see that, they could source it easily enough. No reason to think that older hams want to live in the past all the time (despite what we talk about in Rag Chews). Please ARRL - refresh QST with good, current material and dump the monthly rehash.
I have no problem with QST publishing some older material but a lot of times it doesn't seem very relevant except to historians of electrical circuitry....I am not against it but simply recommend limiting page volume and topics. I also receive the Radio Society Of Great Britain Magazine and they tend to have a little history but a lot of much more in the way of PRACTICAL DIY ham advice and articles that interest me more then electrical circuit theory.... AS I am sure all of use are aware the only persons reading QST and the RSGB ( and CQ ) magazine are alive now and usually have an active station for themselves - and if like me we are always thinking about ways to make it better.... OTA could easily be added right to QST or make it a freebie mailed along with QST.... Larry WA2TLY
That’s exactly how I was pulled into this great hobby close to 50 years ago. Our community center had a small ham radio group. I walked away with some basic literature and a couple of QSTs. Never saw QSTs before but read them cover to cover. So now I take my QSTs and leave them where ever I can.
Great comment . . . I do the same. I figure they're like little seeds that could send up newbies anywhere they are left . . .
Not a bad effort. I like to read them all, including CQ and ER. My new ham son prefers OTA, but I give him my QSTs to "keep the flame burning"! Way back in 1957 a high school pal of mine joined me in playing hooky and visiting W1AW and HQ, which was then downtown. W1INF. We got the tour and left with an armful of old ( and a bit musty ) QSTs from the basement. Some went back to the wartime years, 1940s. Those mags and the ones given to me by my Elmer, Bob Jarvis K2EGI, kept my enthusiasm going!
Nice read,been a ham for 30 years and know some generals and extra class that really need to read the magazine ........
My informal survey on that topic seems to indicate that it's only the audience that's slowly going away who like the old rehash articles. Want a ham journal to actually be read by current and new hams? that's not the way to go about it, Dave
History is replete with radio magazines that FAILED because they tried to extend their reach to the full audience options. QST cannot address the huge divide between new, mostly younger hams, who need technical acculturation --and the larger audience of the older appliance and technically oriented. Thus the magazine creation of ON THE AIR. It was a very WISE move of the ARRL, given we have 30,000 NEW HAMS a year...and most are clueless on how to use their equipment and how to make a QSO. It's not that they are dumb, its that they don't have a guide. Now they do. 73 Chip W1YW
Chip, we're dying off old man. Magazines need to be written for the future, not the past. Yes, "On the Air" is a nice try, but it would be far better integrating all audiences into one magazine.
