Easy Does It: Flashing Through the Snow

Click here to see video of the "Easy Does It" two-transistor

LED flasher in action - holiday style!

Watch and Listen to the La Crosse AM-FM-NOAA Weather Radio in Action

Click here to access a YouTube video featuring this hand-held receiver during a National Weather Service / NOAA weather alert recently in Southern California.

Trees As Radio Antennas? Kurt Wants to Know!

Click here to read the 67-page United States Army Electronics Command document "Performance of Trees as Radio Antennas in Tropical Jungle Forests," published in February 1972.

If you have ever used "vegetable radiators" successfully in amateur, military or commercial radio, Aerials' Kurt N. Sterba would certainly like to hear about your experiences.

Write to him at <CQPlusDigital@gmail.com>.

TNX and 73,
Richard Fisher, KI6SN
Editor, CQ Plus
<ki6sn@cq-amateur-radio.com>

February 2014 - CQ Plus

Conservative talk host Curtis Sliwa returns to the airwaves on WABC (770) in its move to more local programming. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)  

Radio Talk Giant WABC Makes Bold

Move to Local Programming

BY RICHARD FISHER, KI6SN*

           

            One of New York City’s top talk radio outlets is taking a measured and dramatic turn to locally-focused hosts and issues as a counter-move to the loss of two of its big-draw syndicated programs.

            Cumulus Media-owned WABC (770 AM) made the announcement in January after popular conservative talk hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity moved down the dial to WOR (710).

            “We’re delivering on our pledge to invest in localized content that will entertain, inform and engage listeners while also providing advertisers unique opportunities to reach their customers on a sustained basis,” John Dickey, Cumulus’s co-chief operating officer, said in a statement.

            Industry experts speaking at the Syracuse University-sponsored Audio Summit in September 2013 in New York City pointed to local programming as a key to success for AM radio stations in a saturated syndicated market. (IN DEPTH: See “The Power of the Microphone” in February CQ’s digital supplement, CQ Plus <http://cq-amateur-radio.com>. – KI6SN.)

            WABC’s new lineup looks like this:  

• Don Imus’ nationally syndicated “Imus in the Morning,” which has always had a New York-New Jersey-Connecticut sense-of-place, runs from 6 to 10 a.m.
• Geraldo Rivera focuses on New York news and issues from 10 a.m. to noon.
• From noon to 3 p.m. weekdays are Curtis Sliwa, a streetwise conservative, teamed with progressive Ron Kuby. They are up against Limbaugh and were previously teamed on WABC from 2000 to 2007.
• Nationally syndicated conservative host Michael Savage is on from 3 to 5 p.m., going head-to-head with WOR’s Hannity.
• NY1 TV anchor Pat Kiernan hosts a one-hour local show beginning at 5 p.m. His cohost had not been named at press time.

            “In an era when listeners can go off in so many different directions, local is something you can’t take away from people,” Kiernan told the New York Times.

           

* Email < ki6sn@cq-amateur-radio.com >

  

'CQ' Realigning Publications, Adding 'CQ Plus' Digital Supplement 

CQ Communications, Inc. has announced plans to realign its roster of publications and to launch an exciting new online supplement to its flagship magazine, CQ Amateur Radio.

"The hobby radio market is changing," said CQ Communications President and Publisher Dick Ross, K2MGA, "and we are changing what we do and how we do it in order to continue providing leadership to all segments of the radio hobby." CQ Communications is currently the only publisher in the United States serving the broad radio hobby, from broadcast band DXing to amateur radio moonbounce and satellite communications. CQ itself has been amateur radio's leading independent voice for seven decades.

Effective with the February 2014 issue of CQ, said Ross, content from the magazine's three sister publications, Popular Communications, CQ VHF and WorldRadio Online, will be incorporated into CQ's digital edition as a supplement to be called CQ Plus. With this change, hobby radio enthusiasts of all types will be able to go to a single source - CQ - for articles on the broader aspects of hobby radio, from shortwave listening and scanner monitoring to personal two-way services and Internet radio, as well as amateur radio. Richard Fisher, KI6SN, currently Editor of both Popular Communications and WorldRadio Online, will be Editor of CQ Plus.

"Our primary audience is ham radio operators," explained Ross, "but very few hams began their radio involvement as amateurs. Most of us started out as shortwave listeners, broadcast band DXers, CBers or scanning enthusiasts. Many continue to be involved in many different aspects of the radio hobby in addition to amateur radio."

"By consolidating four specialized publications into one," Ross continued, "we will be better able to keep these multidimensional readers informed on all aspects of the radio hobby while simultaneously exposing those who are not hams to all the excitement and opportunities that amateur radio has to offer. We see this as a win-win for all of our readers and our advertisers, who will now be able to reach a wider and more diverse audience."

The expanded material will be an integral part of the digital edition of CQ, and will be included as part of a standard digital subscription. Each month's digital edition will simply continue beyond where the print edition ends, offering supplemental material on all aspects of hobby radio communication and will include selected columns carried over from the other magazines. The added digital content will make full use of the multimedia opportunities presented by digital publications.

Subscribers to WorldRadio Online and the digital editions of Pop’Comm and CQ VHF will receive the digital edition of CQ (including CQ Plus) for the remaining number of issues in their subscription terms. [Print subscribers to Pop’Comm and CQ VHF will receive both the print and digital editions of CQ (including CQ Plus) for the remaining number of issues in their subscription terms. In order for Popular Communications and CQ VHF print edition subscribers to receive CQ Plus - we need your email address! If you have not given it to us already, please do so via this link: < https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CQ-Plus-Update >.