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Reviews For: popular communications

Category: Amateur Radio Periodicals

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Review Summary For : popular communications
Reviews: 53MSRP:
Description:
magazine for shortwave,cb,scanner listeners some amateur radio articles
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00532.1
N0TLD Rating: 2020-11-15
Once great, but no more Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Popular Communications was the magazine that got me back in the radio mood. I was a radio fan since childhood, and built xtal radios and so on, and listened to SW at night and marvel over the aliens communicating with those bleeps and brrrrrps and those almost human but wacky, Donald Duck sounding voices (the little portable multiband didn't do SSB of course).

But by my early 20s, my life had changed pretty drastically over the space of a few months and I ended up living and working in another state halfway across the country. Radio was the least of my interests for a while, since I had to focus on learning -- the job, the people, the social culture, and so on.

ANYway... about a year into living there, I discovered PopComm quite serendipitously when it was left in a shopping cart under the newsprint coupon/sales paper.

When I saw it after putting things in the car, I just put it in one of the bags and drove home.

That very night, I decided to open the magazine and see what it was.

By the time I got to the middle of it and the shortwave b'cast schedules pages, I was a crazy radio guy again. It all came rooooaaring back and the very next day I got a Grundig Yacht Boy 400, which had SSB, a very new concept for me.

It's all grown and overgrown since then, but for many years I read PopComm all the time. I never subscribed, but I could always get them at a discount from a friend's book store/mag rack.

I DID subscribe to Monitoring Times for a few years, because it was simply *better*.

At that time, PopComm was a good, fun, wide open radio fan's magazine and I really enjoyed it for a number of years -- I still have a collection of issues from '94 to '98 -- and it did indeed have something for everybody interested in any aspect of radio.

But it began to lose some of its fun and positive tone when editorship changed and politics was introduced to the magazine, primarily in Harold Ort's columns but not long after that many other writers began to take a similar tone.

It stopped being fun, and after a while it was not really informative enough to bother with it. I had Monitoring Times already, anyway.

By that time, MT was so much better than PopComm, simply *better* -- more professional looking, more in-depth stories and columns and articles, really great projects to build (from antennas to kit SW radios), and the SW schedule in every issue was far more informative and a lot longer, a lot more pages I should say.

And the addition of the Grove Catalog in every issue was just great. I looked through them every issue, just drooling over so many neat looking things.

At any rate... by then, PopComm would never have matched MT's standards.

Popular Communications was once a good, fun magazine, and for a number of years... but it died a slow death becoming more negative and political.

I said goodbye to PopComm many years before it actually died. I'd love to see a magazine like PopComm, at its best times, return to the magazine rack.
W4FJT Rating: 2014-06-11
Great in the day Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This was great back in the day. The monitoring hobby is a victim of technology. Through no fault of their own, Pop Comm became insolvent, along with Monitoring Times, Radio Shack, well you name it.

It lives on in CQ Plus, a digital publication that works fine on a pad. It's the future of publications, like it or not. We only go forward, we can't go back.
K2KOH Rating: 2014-06-11
Downhill Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Went downhill after Tom Kneitel gave it up. Rest in peace, Tom.
K3VYY Rating: 2013-12-27
Magazines not delivered! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
2013 has been marked by late deliveries. I had to call to get an August issue which I never received, September and October were late, and have not gotten an issue since October. My susbscription expires May 2015.
KX7P Rating: 2010-12-03
OK Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I subscribed years ago and let my subscription lapse. I started up again and noticed it's not as informative as it use to be. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the magazine just does not hold my interest like it did years ago. Maybe it's me, I don't know for sure.

It's ok, it has some good articles, but overall it's just an OK magazine at this time.
AF4KK Rating: 2010-07-16
Always have read it; Always will Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Popular Communications has something for everybody! I've enjoyed every issue since 1992 and I still read it every month!

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Earlier 4-star review posted by AF4KK on 2003-01-27

Geez, people. Back off. Okay so many of you perceive it as a "beginner's" magazine. While some topics seem to be recycled, find me a magazine that DOESN'T do that. While you may not be a beginner in HAM radio, scanning, etc., they DO introduce topics that may be new to some people such as monitoring a particular country on shortwave, a "new" utility, digital scanning, slow-scan TV, etc. etc.
I've been reading POP COMM for about 8 or 9 years and will continue to do so!
KB0XR Rating: 2010-07-15
Still like it Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've been a subscriber since it's debut. It's getting a bit stale now but I still renew everytime. Nothing else available that I like.

Gordo's articles are really getting strange. Must be the California water.

I dropped Monitoring Times years ago because of the center section of frequencies that goes on for pages and pages and is really not relevent due to internet radio availability.

W2MV Rating: 2010-07-14
Some Issues OK Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I currently subscribe and will not renew. I've subscribed for several years now.
There are some issues which contain material that is worthwhile to me, but they are not very frequent.
The problem is that most of the material is not applicable to what I'm looking for.
W8AAZ Rating: 2009-03-19
Pick n choose Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have read this mag off and on for decades but lately not very often. I have always bought it exclusively off the newsstands, etc. So if you are in the grocery, it is worth picking it up and flipping thru it to see if anything is relevent to you. If it has something you need or want to know, buy it and read it. If it is full of scanner frequencies for Chinese tug boats or something, I pass on that issue. Pick and choose. Buy at retail and save the subscription cost. Might be only one issue a year that you want.
KC8SLC Rating: 2007-12-24
Lost interest!! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Not enough indepth details on the radio rebuilds and product reviews. I also quickly grew tired of Harold's political trash articles. I did notice a change after Harold left, but lost interest by then and could not wait for my subscription to run out. I enjoy my Monitoring Times because of the projects and rebuilds are far better!! Sorry Pop Com, Tim.