Promotion

OK, I know everyone has to put food on the table somehow.  But when it comes to promoting amateur radio stuff, things get a bit sticky.

I think OH8STN is a good man.  He puts together nice videos, even though I am not quite so much a 'prepper' as his video channels tend to portray him.  After all, it's a good thing that someone is making radio work, out in the frozen wastelands of Finland.  We can all learn something from that.

But the problem for me is that the channels are often not explicit about the promotion of certain products.  For a while, Julian has been 'mentioning' the Powerfilm Lightsaver rollable PV panel and integrated battery in his videos.  It's not very difficult to detect that he's being at least encouraged to promote this product, alongside some others that have appeared in videos past.  But it's never quite spelled out explicitly.

So when I saw the YouTube post depicted above online this morning, advertising a discount code for the Powerfilm, I have to admit I felt a bid bad for Julian, because, even if he isn't receiving any financial incentive to promote the product, we can only react by suspecting he is.  Whether or not this suspicion is reasonable, and that his reviews and opinions remain impartial nevertheless, is something only Julian can answer.  

For myself, I haven't really been taking any notice of Julian's opinions for a while now, not least because there's always a cheaper homebrew version of these commercial products that can be put together, and that can more easily be repaired when they break.