October 1920
The only article of interest to me in the October 1920 QST is “A Paper on QRM” by John Gray, 6MZ. QRM is still sometimes a problem today, but the QRM problem in 1920 was a much different one. They were still using spark-gap transmitters in 1920, and radio gear was pretty broadband. As 6MZ put it,
All radio communication is more or less affected by interference, but the situation is particularly bad in amateur work. When you come to thing about it this is not very surprising. Nobody expects very good service out of a six-party telephone. So why should we expect to whomever we please, whenever we please, on the several-hundred party line of two hundred meters? When you look at it that way, I sometimes wonder that we ever succeed in talking to each other at all.
Another thing to note is the price: 20¢. That equates to $2.72 in today’s dollars, so for some reason, the price of magazines has gone up way more than the rate of inflation in the ensuing 100 years.
October 1970
The October 1970 QST features the article, “The Ham Builder’s Nightmare” by Doug DeMaw, W1CER. The article reports on complaints by some QST readers that the parts called out in some of the construction articles were difficult to obtain. W1CER says, “Regretfully, the parts procurement situation seems to be going from bad to worse, feeding fuel to the fires of frustration which contribute to the counting of sheep…or sine waves.”
Geez, what would he have to say about the situation today? At the end of the article, he lists the following suppliers:
Allied Radio Shack- Allied Electronics
- Amidon Associates
- Arrow Electronic Supply
Barry ElectronicsBurstein-ApplebeeHarrison RadioHarvey Radio, Inc.Henry RadioLafayette Electronics- J. W. Miller Co. (now part of Bourns Co.)
- Newark Electronics
Poly PaksRadio Shack (Tandy Corp.)Stafford Electronics Corp.World Radio Labs
I’ve crossed out the companies that are no longer in business. As you can see, most of them are now long gone.
October 1995
The editorial in the October 1995 QST, “Thinking Strategically” by Dave Sumner, K1ZZ, is a piece on the inevitability of the internet. K1ZZ didn’t have any predictions about how the internet would affect amateur radio, just that it would in some way. It certainly has, hasn’t it?
He notes that surveys have pointed out that 48% of 1995’s radio amateurs had access to the internet and compared the use of the internet to the various amateur radio modes: FM, SSB – 79%, CW – 54%, packet radio- 40%. I wonder what these percentages would be today. Certainly, more than 90% of today’s ham use the internet and would guess that fewer than 25% operate CW.
Maybe a lot of old part sources are gone, but a number of new providers have stepped in, in particular Mouser and Digikey. And there are more speciality suppliers that are easier to find and interact with, due to the Internet. In particular, there seem to be a lot of kit suppliers of top-notch kits, these days.