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Reviews For: QST Magazine

Category: Amateur Radio Periodicals

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Review Summary For : QST Magazine
Reviews: 267MSRP: 34
Description:
Subscription comes with membership to the American Radio Relay League
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.arrl.org
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
002673.8
K5ADF Rating: 2012-01-17
ARRL is indeed defending our bands Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I am a life member of ARRL so I have been getting QST for decades. It is a good magazine in my opinion and I do read it. I like to read the special events station, doctor, band reports and some construction articles along with ham news. Given there is only two ham magazines (QST and CQ) we have a limited choice. I subscribed for several years to CQ but dropped it several years ago because it was too elementary.

KB6YH Rating: 2012-01-17
Excellent Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I started reading QST in 1950. I have built many projects based on ideas from QST. My only problem is I've saved too many of them. I always look forward to the next issue. QST supports our hobby.
WN9D Rating: 2012-01-16
No More Time Owned: more than 12 months.
For the record I am a member of the local ARES organization, so I have the holy grail EMCOMM bases covered. Having said that I will continue with my review.
Based on some of the posts, I'm not pulling my weight (translation - "slacker") because I am not a dues paying member (I let my membership expire several years back). Gosh!! I don't remember my FCC ticket being issued with the condition I join ARRL. Am I overlooking something here?
The quality of QST has declined since I joined up over 25 years ago. QST was even better in the early 1970s, I wish I kept those issues.
I won't go into the ARRL politics, ignoring the rank and file, less than objective product reviews, guzillions of advertisements, etc. There's been enough said on that. Simply put, the quality of QST is no more.
Yes, ARRL represents us before the FCC. They can't lobby with Congress. So what are dues and QST doing for us?
Have we forgotten regulation by bandwidth? That was the proverbial nail in the coffin for me, I chose to let my membership expire.
I would certainly subscribe to QEX if it was available without membership. I would strongly consider membership if I could opt for QEX over QST.
Many moons ago I almost signed on for Life membership. I don't regret my decision.
But since membership dues automatically subscribes one to QST and only QST, I choose to retain my "slacker" status.
Speaking of lobbying I have a novel idea - why don't we create an amateur radio PAC to lobby before Congress?

Randall Williams WN9D
K4EQ Rating: 2011-03-12
Outstanding! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I find QST to be an outstanding publication with a good balance of technical and general ham interest articles. Some of the negative statements written by a few reviewers are just not factual. Two of the more recent ones are that you must be a Diamond Club member are access the QST archives (ANY member can access the archives.) and that there are no negative reviews because manufacturers submit equipment for review (There ARE negative reviews and equipment is bought off the shelf). I can't wait for each issue to arrive.
K6SDW Rating: 2010-12-31
The Best we have Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Like previous reviewers have written, if you don't like the articles, get off your fat a$$ and write for them!!! I did in the 70's, not much money and believe me you make any errors in your article there's some seriously smart hams out there that will catch them!!

So.......challenge yourself and write for QST...

Cheers All
K6JPA Rating: 2010-12-30
I Enjoy It Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I enjoy the magazine, and appreciate the organization that sponsors it.
ZENKI Rating: 2010-12-30
OK more quality needed Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Ideas for improvement.

More technical articles.

Faster equipment reviews.

More antennas testing articles like the mobile antenna testing article they did a while back.

How about yagi shoot out from the ARRL?

More advanced "hands on radio"articles.

Professional test equipment reviews for equipment that hams might use.

Review of professional HF equipment such as new HF manpack radios. I am sure the military sellers would like other markets. It would be nice to see some reviews of Harris, Collins and Rohde HF equipment. Theres hundreds of hams who work for these companies who can offer advice. I am sure offering this equipment at the next ARRL auction would be a popular if it reviewed good!

Hands on articles for test equipment like VNA's which are becoming readily available.

"Getting on the air" Is great for new hams expand this column to things like using and adjusting a transceiver for a splatter free signal. Just about every new ham that I hear runs way too much mic gain or is using a CB amp, and they do splatter.

Someone should also write a column for good second hand test equipment. There is such much second hand test equipment available from Ebay etc. It is however a minefield if you dont know what you are buying.




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Earlier 1-star review posted by ZENKI on 2007-01-12

The Lack of technical articles and projects is very poor. The good stuff that we all interested in is on all the Reflectors and Groups on the net. Thats where you go now if you want technical advice and expertise.

The biggest joke is something like the Annual Antenna issue. It consist 4 articles thats old hat and they call that an antenna issue. Yet the good stuff they stick in the Compendium books and expect you too buy it. If you really want to be informed technically you would have to spend $1000 dollars a year buying all the ARRL products, and in most cases you only interested in 3 or 4 articles and you may have general interest in the others.

Thankfully we have web pages like W8JI, W4RNL, AG6K, W8WWV, W7EL, GM3SEK etc etc. These web pages are in the true spirit of amateur radio rather than mass marketing and stupidity. Its the kind of material that should be in QST.

What also is sad is that the ARRL owns the Rights to Ham Radio magazine and Communications Quartely. Why dont they republish some of that great material. They bury it and expect you too buy it on a CD.

The articles in QEX should be placed in QST and QEX shut down. This is what the Japanese CQ magazine does, they dont seem to have fear publishing all things related to ham radio regardless of how technical it is in one magazine. I think the same comments apply to the NCJ.

The biggest disapointment was when QST decided to drop the contest results.

You can never build a project from QST and expect it too work because there will always be a error thats corrected in the next issue.

If it was not for the Equipment reviews i would not be a ARRL member. Most time i just open QST flip through it and throw it out in the garbage can.

Many ARRL staffer post interesting stuff to the various reflectors. Ed Hare has written some interesting replies on a whole host of interesting subjects from BPL, measuring BPL, EMC etc etc. I dont know why the editors think that we all dumb and dont publish this material in QST. They should get all the staffers to write about the work they do.

Considering that QST is almost 50% advertising its waste of paper and occupies valuable bookshelf space especially since the content is poor. If you consider that if you saved all the good articles you could barely make make up the thickenss of one QST, thats how lame and bad its technical content is.

The saddest part is that i dont ever recall recommending 1 single article from QST to anyone in the last 10 years.

In Short QST should be the central focus for Ham, radio not a tabloid glossy junk magazine which it is today. It seems they so focussed on producing good looking covers to suck us all in yet the cupboard is bare inside.

If we considered that what is hot in ham radio is what is discussed on reflectors, newsgroups and other internet forums and groups, You would have too conclude that QST is failing the vast majority of hams because it fails too report these hot issues and technical topics.

QST needs to get back the technical brains and gurus and publish some decent material, otherwise its going to become irrelevant soon because they internet will capture most of its market.
NN6EE Rating: 2010-12-30
Too glitzee and not enough substance! Time Owned: N.A.
Honestly Guys you who had grown up with QST in the 50s & 60s saw how "technically savvy" all the construction articles really were and how much we'd all learned from them, now it's nothing but color-grossy photos and not really any substance, and too damn-many ads as well as "Equipment Reviews" that have NEVER BEEN NEGATIVE towards any of the mfgers who'd submitted gear for review!!! Why? ARRL doe'nt want to hurt anybody who advertises in OUR MAGAZINE because they WANT THE MONEY!

So much for "NON-Profit" HUH?
G3LIV Rating: 2010-12-30
I look forward to its delivery Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I quite enjoy this mag. Ok as I am in the UK there is quite a lot of comment that is USA based but I expect that.
I do really like the Vintage Radio by K2TQN .
WELL DONE John.
I also enjoy articles like on the HRO as in Jan 2011.
Print quality and pictures are first class.
So I will keep paying my dues.

de Johnny G3LIV www.g3liv.co.uk
N2EY Rating: 2010-12-30
Very good but could be a little better. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Amateur radio today involves so many different activities that it's a real challenge to even begin to cover all of them. No matter what ARRL puts in the mag, somebody is going to complain about it, and want more of something else.

The reason QEX was created is that ARRL got so many complaints that QST was "too technical". So most of the really tech stuff goes to QEX or the website.

The one thing I would change would be to reduce the text spacing so that there could be more stuff printed. But then there would be complaints that it was hard to read.