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So my Xmas edition of the RSGB, Radcom, magazine arrived today. I was expecting a bumper edition for Xmas but I was sorely disappointed. It has a festive front cover and to be fair that's about it. This months  magazine has 37 pages of adverts altogether including half pages, it has picture front cover and a advert back cover, it has 1 side of contents almost 1 side of welcome new members, it has a double sided page of the index of all article's in 2011. There are 5 pages of around the region, snippets from local clubs which to be fair has little national appeal add to this the letters pages and private adverts there is not a great deal left for readable content .This magazine has 96 pages

Well what about the content ? I am a M0 licence and I am quite competent in operating and maintaining my station, I am very keen on QRP SSB and operate a lot on PSK31.
I really enjoy contacts with special event stations and I like the challenge on getting a good distant contact on 5w of power, it still thrills me.
 So what articles are in this months magazine, IOTA 1000 a nice article on 2 pages about IOTA contacts quite interesting this one. Antennas impedance measurements and the feedback problems. Next is Homebrew, broadband driver amplifiers and generating CW. Then 5MHZ propagation forecasts utilising the Experiments Database. Then Technical Correspondence dynamic range and blocking. The next article was on QRP the G QRP club, interesting this one.

Now I am going to stop here because the majority of the content is really not fun, yes its very technical and yes I have no doubt that some people will get something out of it but not me. The problem is this type of content has been the same for many years and its just not appealing to most newer amateurs that I know me included.

I continue to be a member of the RSGB and pay my monthly subs, why I am not sure. I like many others have just voted to try and change the way that the RSGB is run, I have the hope that this organisation will now change and that it will be more in tune with the younger and newer members of this great hobby, I can only wait.

As with most people I am having to tighten my belt a watch the pennies and maybe very soon my subscription to the RSGB will be stopped. We all need to feel that we get something for our money and sadly I am not so sure about this one. Time will tell.