Amateur standings
A recurring problem in the news biz is that what interests some of your readers doesn’t necessarily interest all your readers. Years ago, when I was a suburban newspaper editor, a reader complained that no local paper devoted any space to the amateur duckpin bowling league. This sport engaged the avid attention of about 20 people in a circulation area of about 250,000.
I explained that most people wanted stories about their kids on the high school teams to appear in the space we had available. Of course, the rejoinder to that was “Well, how is it ever going to get popular if nobody prints anything about it?”
You go with your core competency. MRT’s primary mission is land-mobile infrastructure for CMRS, private business networks and public safety. Even with that elite readership, you can’t please everyone.
How to install a police radio control head in a Crown Vic doesn’t engage the attention of a community repeater operator, and tower regs don’t have much impact on paging amplifier design. However, if it’s in the discipline, somebody may see “A” in one story and “B” in the other and thereby invent “C.”
We try to keep it land mobile. We’ve renamed our recurring “Wireless@Work” feature series “Radio@Work” to deter submissions from people who don’t read the magazine. (An editor at a sister publication recently pronounced that “wireless” now means, “wireless Internet.” OK, we’re old-fashioned. We thought “wireless” meant “radio.”) We’re into radio, but not all radio.
At MRT, I act as “gatekeeper” for submissions. That is, all roads to the printer lead past my desk. If you’re intrigued, click “How to get an article in MRT” at www.mrtmag.com. We prefer submissions from engineers and technicians in the field, but sometimes the manufacturers do have a good story to tell — really. In July in this space, Associate Editor Kari Taylor solicited ideas for future articles. We received several useful responses, but a curious thing happened. Several were related to amateur radio. (I avoid the word “ham” because [a] experienced amateurs are more than mere hobbyists, and [b] our boss, Editorial Director Don Bishop, doesn’t like to be compared to a hog’s hindquarter.
Now, it’s been suggested — in some rather bizarre ways — that MRT “has it in” for amateurs, somehow. No, it’s just not what we cover here. The PLMR and CMRS communities do owe a debt to the amateur ranks, though. A reader poll revealed that about 11% of our subscribers entered commercial, private or public safety radio through the amateur radio door.
Many of MRT’s regular contributors “DX” with some frequency (Don Bishop, Harold Kinley and Pat Buller, among others). There is a rooting interest in operator certifications, FCC enforcement and the respect local communities owe to amateur radio all the time — not just when there’s a hurricane or wildfire.
How do you give back? An example is in the “Point-of-Sale Perspective” column on page XX. It’s one way commercial users can find a tax deduction and at the same time help the hams. (Sorry, Don.)
