FREE Radio/Hobbyist magazines

[Mikel]

The DECEMBER 2020 edition of Practical Wireless is now ready and waiting for you to read or download or both, totally free of charge as usual.

Practical Wireless December 2020:
https://magazinelib.com/all/practical-w ... mber-2020/

As always thanks so much you know it’s much appreciated

Glad you didn't miss it this time! I see the G4YVM antenna (Banntena) review is in there as predicted and is a good idea to be fair

[gmham]

Yep noticed that will enjoy reading that.

[Mikel]

The October issue of Radio User has just appeared out of the blue so don't hang about!

Radio User October 2020:
https://magazinelib.com/all/radio-user-october-2020/

[Mikel]

Wow, 2 for the price of one! Radio User November and December at the same time, anyone would think Christmas was coming!

I am going to have a reading binge again at this rate, as my hard drive is filling up.

Radio User November 2020:
https://magazinelib.com/all/radio-user-november-2020/

Radio User December 2020:
https://magazinelib.com/all/radio-user-december-2020/

[milly]

Wow, 2 for the price of one!

Great stuff* - thanks for the heads-up Mike


(I say that but the magazine is utter shoite these days)

[Mikel]

Wow, 2 for the price of one!

Great stuff* - thanks for the heads-up Mike


(I say that but the magazine is utter shoite these days)

Yeah, I know what you mean, I don't actually buy any mags these days I must admit.

A little while back I found a pile of old 'Radio User' magazines from 2010 in the back of a cupboard and they are priced at £3.50.

I must have had money to burn back then

[Mikel]

Anyone notice how the most of the advertisers left PW when it changed hands in 2010 ?

Yaesu and Icom especially dropped them like a hot rock, but still advertise in Radcom for example.

I guess lack of sales and hiked up prices probably annoyed them.

A couple of months ago Radcom told advertisers that they were faced with a non-negotiable page rate increase with just 2 weeks notice.

Didn't go down too well apparently, so it will be interesting to see who blinks first.

I am not a member of the RSGB so don't see Radcom very often but it may be getting thinner, soon.

[WhiteNoisePoetry]

Yes, I remember that one now, thanks for reminding me.
That was when W&S spat their dummy out and put their intended advert online instead (IIRC).
I can't say that I have kept an eye on it though, and I have not seen any Radcoms for most of the year.

I suspect that the major advertisers / dealers will still lump the costs in Radcom since it does have
to a fair degree a know distribution number (about 22,000 copies).

PW is probably far lower.

Also if you read the reviews carefully.

In the past, a review sample was often supplied with acknowledgements to either Icom or Yaesu UK etc.

You don't see that now.

Just a bog standard user review by Mr A.N.Other and no mentions at all.

That's probably because -

It feels to me that some noses have been seriously put out of joint and they wont supply samples, and also that
the reviewers have been told not to mention the source of the rigs unless they are advertisers.

Whatever it is, I personally don't think the current editor is any good, the articles are scraping the bottom
of the barrel, the magazine owners take the **** wanting £40 for 12 old copies of the mag, they've cut down the
amount of pages and put the price up.

Not even a decent book store in it any more.

No wonder J Birkett, dealers and most advertisers have buggered off.

- WNP -







- WNP -

[Mikel]

Thing is, this is where the RSGB miss the point of these mags being made available free online - advertising.

The publishers of PW and Radio User (Warners) sell the predicted amount of hard copies after charging the advertisers a wedge (say around £30,000 - £40,000 for a full page ad ?)

Warners then allow the publications to be available on the free magazine sites, and so saves them having to pay for as much online advertising for the magazines, and this in turn keeps their advertisers happy by giving them additional coverage as well.

Surely it's a win win situation for the magazines and the advertisers?

The publishers must have done their homework and I wouldn't be surprised if the free mag sites were actually owned by the publishers or at least partly funded by them?

If the 'big' publishers can see the benefit of this free advertising then why cant the RSGB, as hardly any issues of RADCOM get released into the wild?

[WhiteNoisePoetry]

£30-40K for a full page ad ?
What ya smokin' Mikel, I want some
More like £500, but then I might be out of date.

Interesting that during the original COVID stuff, many radio societies around the world
gave out free online copies.

That would at least support advertisers who were suffering from a massive downturn.

By giving the advertisers some free support, they'd hopefully stay in business to provide
future advertising. It's called a dividend.

And it could provide a good advert for the society in general and hopefully pick up a few
new members who wanted to see more.

Not to mention that if anyone is truly involved in the hobby, that some genuine altruism would
appear.

But nope, nothing whatsoever from RSGB or ARRL.

They seemed more interested in facile **** like silly ONTHEAIRTOCARE / STAYHOMECRAP callsigns
or spending months bragging about the 30 seconds of amateur radio given a mention on some boring
pop radio station.

Yawn...

[Mikel]

Hey £500, that's cheap

In my defence I was looking at prices for The Guardian and Daily Mail - bigger circulation probably.

Well the RSGB should have a steady stream of customers in the pipeline with these online exams proving to be so popular, and that's most likely why they justified increasing the advertising fees.

I haven't bought a paper magazine or a newspaper for a few years now, and the thought of reading one and then throwing it away seems like an alien concept to me these days, especially at almost a fiver a pop for Radio User and PW.

I suppose the next step for RADCOM is to make that an online only publication and in a format that you can't download and send on to someone else.

Only a matter time.

[WhiteNoisePoetry]

I think the RSGB have already discussed the PDF only route but turned it down.

As I understand it, the cost of using the software tools to produce encrypted PDFs
for anti "piracy" outweighs traditional paper media.

The main problem I see with magazines these days is that they have become nothing
more than a list of weblinks.

That's bad, because it is the point of an article to do the educating / informing and it's
just lazy writing to simply point the reader to online resources.

Such basics of journalism are totally wasted on the current editorial prats at the helm
these days.

The other problem is attracting talent.

Who wants to waste several months work and then wait a year to hope than an article
gets accepted for a poxy £100 for 2 or 3 pages of original work ?

Might be a tad more now but not a lot.

I gave up some years ago, and friend in the business today have told PW / Radcom to poke
their rates where the sun don't shine.

We'd rather give it away free on personal websites etc than be insulted for good copy.

- WNP -

[gmham]

Would certainly think advertising rates are substantially more than £500 for a full page advert otherwise W&S who whoever the big main dealer was that stopped advertising with them would have continued. £500 for 22000 readers and all of them potential future buyers would be a complete bargain.

Found one online search saying £1365 for a full page within Radcom with % discounts for taking more monthly adverts , not sure when these rates were written up thou.

[WhiteNoisePoetry]

>£500 for 22000 readers and all of them potential future buyers would be a complete bargain.

It would be. I made the mistake of not specifying that £500 was my estimate for PW with a presumed
lower readership level.

Obviously the bigger the readership the more a mag can charge.

I heard a rumour that PW was down to about 5-7000 copies a month, so that figure for Radcom / 22000 copies
would feel about right.

- WNP -

[gmham]

>£500 for 22000 readers and all of them potential future buyers would be a complete bargain.

It would be. I made the mistake of not specifying that £500 was my estimate for PW with a presumed
lower readership level.

Obviously the bigger the readership the more a mag can charge.

I heard a rumour that PW was down to about 5-7000 copies a month, so that figure for Radcom / 22000 copies
would feel about right.

- WNP -

Okay sorry my mistake missed the PW mag ref but even them would be surprised if it was as low as £500. Not sure why but having spoken to various businesses and they say even advertising in local papers can be huge costs. As I say must have been a particularly expensive increase if a main retailer has pulled from Radcom as would have thought even in the days of the internet it was a perfect way of showing your goods. With regards selling radios everyone reading is your exact target audience where as advertising anything else in a general newspaper then only those interested in your particular advert will stop to look.

I must admitt thou although a long time subscriber to Radcom I personally generally just browse over there adverts as unless something new has been introduced you know from the seeing the same advert every month what’s within !! So maybe they have worked out advertising versus costs is just not as viable as it once was ?