Will it be another case of impenetrable writing on an equally impenetrable topic, or will there be signs of improvement?
Well, fair play, this edition has a lot of good writing. Top of the pile is certainly the expansive section on moonbounce by, the magazine gives, G4ZTR and G4SWX. A very successful blend of basic concepts and moving on to cover in sufficient detail the type of equipment and results that can be expected. Not that setting-up for moonbounce is particularly affordable, but that's another story.
The Moonbounce article style is what RadCom should strive to attain. It will, however, find this very difficult unless it abandons the rather lazy idea of waiting around for hams to send them print-ready articles. It needs to develop a 'house style' that is consistent and appeals to a wide and not just highly-niche readership. This probably means paying people to write, so that those that can write do so, whilst those who glory in thinking they're a successful author when they are anything but are dropped.
Now, the good news keeps coming with a nice little article on ARDF by G3ORY. I chuckled at the very enthusiastic face of a schoolboy, whilst a girl slightly in the background (unfortunate), looks as if she's saying "what's the point of this, I can't hear anything anyway. Again, unfortunate. But the text makes ARDF appealing to everyone, which is what we want to see.
Neither this month nor last could I see much point in printing a talk given by some bigwig, whose credentials take up three quarters the width of a page (does Prof. Cochrane think we are impressed?), about "One Future" for amateur radio. Sounding a bit like a Labour Party catchphrase, the article is really dull, and entirely unrealistically, fails to make any mention of the catastrophic drop off in numbers the hobby is almost inevitably about to suffer in the coming few years. It's very old boy RadCom, I'm afraid, Prof.
Next we come across a much-needed article on small loop antennas. Covering this in detail could occupy RadCom editions for months to come. But it's good to see a nice and well-written introduction by G3LDO.
The 'Data' section keeps providing sometimes esoteric but invariably interesting articles.
Then we move to making a loop antenna out of aluminium foil by G3PKW. Great, user-friendly article, which shows you don't have to spend hundreds of pounds/dollars to get yourself an antenna that works very well (I'm a regular user of loops, so I should know!)
The rest is pretty usual stuff, but I continue to be very disappointed by the 'GHz' section, which seems to be steadfastly unwilling to start at the beginning and show a total novice how to get practically involved in those bands. Again, with a bunch of men turning their back on showing newcomers the ropes, said men - and society - can only expect participants to dwindle rapidly as the years roll by. That's a shame, more especially as it's this part of the amateur allocations that industry most wants to get its hands on.
Reviews of equipment made by regular advertising income providers to RadCom are as you would expect - not too much criticism and generally supportive of the idea you should buy said (expensive) product.
But in all, this month's RadCom shows real promise. But can they keep it up?
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