Early RSGB Bulletin issues on Internet Archive

[Stephen Thomas Cole]

A nice collection of scanned early RSGB mags has been uploaded to the
Internet Archive by Jason Scott (twitter.com/textfiles) at:

https://archive.org/details/rsgbbulletin

508 issues! Enjoy!

--
STC / M0TEY / People’s Champion 2018
http://twitter.com/ukradioamateur

[g8dgc]

Stephen Thomas Cole <use...@stephenthomascole.com> wrote:

> A nice collection of scanned early RSGB mags has been uploaded to the
> Internet Archive by Jason Scott (twitter.com/textfiles) at:
>
> https://archive.org/details/rsgbbulletin
>
> 508 issues! Enjoy!

Excellent, thank you.

--
g8dgc <g8d...@gmail.com>

[g8dgc]

[later]

"Radio Society of Great Britain Newsletter
Removed at the request of the Radio Society of Great Britain."

:(

--
g8dgc <g8d...@gmail.com>

[David Wade]

They still sell them on DVD and they will still be in Copyright.

https://rsgbshop.org/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Radcom___QST_17.html

Dave
G4UGM

[Ian Jackson]

In message <1o5lpuc.19uc73x1i0qwk0N%g8d...@gmail.com>, g8dgc
<g8d...@gmail.com> writes

It's a pity that the RSGB is not big-hearted enough to make RadCom etc
freely available online - say when it's 10 years old.

I know that they do it on disk as payware, but I can't believe that the
older archived material is anything like being a 'nice little earner'.

I'd love to consign at least 50 of my 60 yearsworth to the recycling
skip, but I'd also like to have them available for the highly unlikely
event that I might ever find time to take the occasional quick trip down
memory lane.
--
Ian

[Gareth's was W7 now W10 Downstairs Computer]

On 06/04/2019 07:53, g8dgc wrote:

That's a very strange way of "representing the interests of all
radio amateurs and short wave listeners".

Very similar in a somewhat antisocial attitude to the discussion
group bearing their name, RSGBTech.

Such a stance is why I and a number of others deal with OfCom
directly and do not claim representation by the RSGB.

[Ian Jackson]

In message <q89tdk$nvq$1...@dont-email.me>, David Wade <g4...@dave.invalid>
writes

As I've said, I've got 50 yearsworth of paper Bulls / RadComs I'd like
to declutter. However, for something that is really just 'nice to have,
just in case', around £17 per five years doesn't seem to be worth it. I
doubt if they get many takers, and probably they won't lose much by
making them freely available. It actually might make a good advert for
anyone newly taking an interest in the hobby - but as the RSGB is said
to be essentially a book publishing company, maybe they see things
differently.
--
Ian

[Stephen Thomas Cole]

Yes, it seems that they’re determined to protect the earnings from the
sales of their DVD magazine archives. But at £170 or so for a set with
everything from 1930 onwards, I imagine they likely shift one or two per
year, at best (and even that’s very optimistic, I reckon). It’s very
blinkered of them, imo. I’ve sent them a firmly worded message, encouraging
them to consider at least releasing historical texts, 50 years and older
like. The Internet Archive is a great platform to do that from and they’d
get a hell of a lot of free publicity if they collaborated with IA on some
kind of curated project, not to mention the potential to reach and interest
new audiences with amateur radio.

[lordgnome]

On 06/04/2019 13:11, Ian Jackson wrote:

> As I've said, I've got 50 yearsworth of paper Bulls / RadComs I'd like
> to declutter. However, for something that is really just 'nice to have,
> just in case', around £17 per five years doesn't seem to be worth it. I
> doubt if they get many takers, and probably they won't lose much by
> making them freely available. It actually might make a good advert for
> anyone newly taking an interest in the hobby - but as the RSGB is said
> to be essentially a book publishing company, maybe they see things
> differently.

Well I've left the RSGB anyway... The only things I used to find of
interest in Radcom was Pat Hawker's writings and the letters page.

[wicklowham]

On 06/04/2019 13:11, Ian Jackson wrote:

========================
Recently there was a similar situation with VERON the NL -IARU society

An outsider had made available their monthly publication "Electron" from
the 1940s and 50s (one every month) ,but had to stop that because of a
threat by the VERON Secretary of legal action .
Like RSGB , VERON is just a hobby society .
For these old publications there is no market , but yet the 2 societies
maintain their copyright stance.
Not a very good move to encourage the younger generations to get
on board.
Indeed both in the UK , NL and many other countries most AR society -
and club meetings are hardly attended by people below age of 40 if not 50.
Amateur Radio has essentially become an older person's activity .... a
sad situation.

Frank , EI7KS

[mm0fmf]

On 06/04/2019 16:11, wicklowham wrote:
> For these old publications there is no market

Yet the copyright owners seem to think there is. I'd like to be able to
read the old issues but my desire is financially significantly less than
the RSGB wants.

They're not mine to take, so I'll do without access until the price
drops to what I think is fair or they become available for free
legitimately.

[Guy G4DWV 4X1LT]

On Sat, 6 Apr 2019 16:11:24 +0100, just as I was about to take a herb,
wicklowham <wicklowh...@rfburns.eu> disturbed my reverie and
wrote:

>For these old publications there is no market , but yet the 2 societies
>maintain their copyright stance.

If one does not take steps to protect copyright, one loses it.
--
73 de Guy G4DWV 4X1LT

[Dave Sergeant]

In article <6sciae5dk3ii5eru3...@4ax.com>, no-
em...@tardis.com says...

Well at least one voice of reason in this thread. I defend the RSGB
stance in this matter, it is their copyright and their right to defend
it.

As it happens some years ago I bought the full RadCom CD set up to 1996
(when they moved to single year CDs from multi year ones). Since then I
have scanned all my old issues and recently bought their earlier 1925-
1939 set. A good investment in my view. My own scanned issues are for my
use only, I will not make them available to others.

What the RSGB should do is to make all these available on their website,
preferably PDF form, for their members. A few recent years are available
but even the index doesn't go back that far - I have the full index as
searchable PDF. RSGB are lagging other societies, especially ARRL, in
this respect. But as I say again, for members only.

73 Dave G3YMC

[Brian Reay]

Unfortunately not everyone is so honest. I wonder if those who expect the
RSGB to give away members’ assets* - and that is exactly what the copyright
is- work for free?

* money from the sale of books, cds etc helps offset the cost of running
the various services the RSGB provides. But for such sales, subscriptions
would be higher, or services reduced.

Not everything in life is free, someone has to do the work.

[Brian Reay]

People wanting something for free doesn’t mean there is no market.

People not wanting something even when it is free may mean there is no
market but that isn’t quite the same.

Freeloaders expect things others pay for for free, that is the key
difference.

[Ian Jackson]

In message <q8chf8$trt$1...@dont-email.me>, Brian Reay <no...@m.com> writes

>mm0fmf <no...@invalid.com> wrote:
>> On 06/04/2019 16:11, wicklowham wrote:
>>> For these old publications there is no market
>>
>> Yet the copyright owners seem to think there is. I'd like to be able to
>> read the old issues but my desire is financially significantly less than
>> the RSGB wants.
>>
>> They're not mine to take, so I'll do without access until the price
>> drops to what I think is fair or they become available for free
>> legitimately.
>>
>
>Unfortunately not everyone is so honest. I wonder if those who expect the
>RSGB to give away members’ assets* - and that is exactly what the copyright
>is- work for free?

I'm not saying that the RSGB don't have the right to defend their
copyright. What I'm querying here is the probable minuscule commercial
benefit they actually get from it and enforcing it - especially when you
balance it against the 'malefit' [1] of depriving those with an interest
in the history and development of radio and electronics, but which is
not sufficient for them to fork out a lot of money to pursue it.
[1] A word that doesn't exist, of course - but it should!

>
>* money from the sale of books, cds etc helps offset the cost of running
>the various services the RSGB provides. But for such sales, subscriptions
>would be higher, or services reduced.
>
>Not everything in life is free, someone has to do the work.
>

I'm not saying we should be, of right, entitled to free intellectual
property and other reading material and information, but few are going
to pay a lot of money for what will often be just be used as a casual
and occasional read. Just look at all the information available from
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/
Apart from the odd one or two who are deeply into 'old stuff', or need
the information to further their careers, if it wasn't being made freely
available it is highly unlikely that anyone else would seek it out.
While we are, of course, extremely grateful for all the work involved in
making it available to us, for most of us it will simply used to provide
a nostalgic trip down memory lane - and the actual technicalities of the
content has little commercial value.
--
Ian

[Brian Reay]

On 07/04/2019 14:18, Ian Jackson wrote:
> In message <q8chf8$trt$1...@dont-email.me>, Brian Reay <no...@m.com> writes
>> mm0fmf <no...@invalid.com> wrote:
>>> On 06/04/2019 16:11, wicklowham wrote:
>>>> For these old publications there is no market
>>>
>>> Yet the copyright owners seem to think there is. I'd like to be able to
>>> read the old issues but my desire is financially significantly less than
>>> the RSGB wants.
>>>
>>> They're not mine to take, so I'll do without access until the price
>>> drops to what I think is fair or they become available for free
>>> legitimately.
>>>
>>
>> Unfortunately not everyone is so honest. I wonder if those who expect the
>> RSGB to give away members’ assets* - and that is exactly what the
>> copyright
>> is- work for free?
>
> I'm not saying that the RSGB don't have the right to defend their
> copyright. What I'm querying here is the probable minuscule commercial
> benefit they actually get from it and enforcing it - especially when you
> balance it against the 'malefit' [1] of depriving those with an interest
> in the history and development of radio and electronics, but which is
> not sufficient for them to fork out a lot of money to pursue it.
> [1] A word that doesn't exist, of course - but it should!

I believe the CDs in question are (about) £16. Hardly a fortune for
someone interested in the topic. I'm sure some will say 'what about the
youngsters' but the same people will trot out a list of reasons why they
don't believe youngsters should be involved in the hobby.

Plus, as you (and others) have commented in the past, old copies of
RadCom, QST, etc are all but impossible to give away. If people were
that interested and strapped for cash, they could always collect some of
the free old magazines around.

The bottom line is, people want the CDs for free, in the same way people
don't like paying for music CDs etc.

The RSGB isn't alone in charging for 'old' magazines on CD. The GQRP
club also does it.

[Ian Jackson]

In message <q8chpp$vjo$1...@dont-email.me>, Brian Reay <no...@m.com> writes

But how many CDs of particularly the older material does the RSGB sell?
If it's hardly any, and it's more trouble than it's worth, then they
might as well generously do the whole amateur movement a good turn, and
stick it on americanradiohistory.com.

On the other hand, if it actually IS a respectable source of income,
then as a 60-year continuous member I can hardly object to them looking
after the Society's interests, and charging for it.
--
Ian

[Stephen Thomas Cole]

From
https://www.rsgbshop.org/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Radcom___QST_17.html;

“You can purchase all twelve archive sets of the Radcom and Bulletin
CD/DVDs (1925-2010), thats over 20 discs for a special inclusive price of:

ONLY £179.00 (saving over £60 off the individual rrps)”

I’d be very interested to hear how many of those sets they sell each year.
If it’s more than 1, I’d be stunned.

> Plus, as you (and others) have commented in the past, old copies of
> RadCom, QST, etc are all but impossible to give away. If people were
> that interested and strapped for cash, they could always collect some of
> the free old magazines around.
>
> The bottom line is, people want the CDs for free, in the same way people
> don't like paying for music CDs etc.

Nope. People want to casually while away their time perusing interesting
material; they’re simply not going to be remotely keen on dropping 200
notes on doing so.

The RSGB could quite easily release, say, the archives of 1925 to 1980 as a
curated “historical importance” collection, and use it to leverage interest
in the hobby and goodwill to the Society, and lose essentially no income.

The notion of “protecting” their copyright by locking these archives down
is, IMO, a flawed argument; copyright is copyright and it doesn’t
spontaneously dissolve if the legal holder of the copyright can’t or won’t
hound infringers (case in point; there are many software titles that cannot
be reissued or rereleased as the legal entities that held the copyright (ie
the software houses that paid the coders to make the games) have long since
gone belly up and are, therefore, unable to sign off on it). Of course,
IANAL, so YMMV.

[Brian Reay]

So it is £20 per CD, still not a fortune and there is still the option
of free magazines.

It still comes down to people expecting a freebee, or more exactly, the
members to forego the proceeds (no matter how modest) which help fund
services etc their subs otherwise would have to increase to fund.

[David Wade]

On 07/04/2019 21:07, Stephen Thomas Cole wrote:

It doesn't matter. Its how many of each CD. The 1925->1939 set is £16 so
thats about £1/year. The 1939-1953 set is also £16 so a little more
expensive...

>> Plus, as you (and others) have commented in the past, old copies of
>> RadCom, QST, etc are all but impossible to give away. If people were
>> that interested and strapped for cash, they could always collect some of
>> the free old magazines around.
>>
>> The bottom line is, people want the CDs for free, in the same way people
>> don't like paying for music CDs etc.
>
> Nope. People want to casually while away their time perusing interesting
> material; they’re simply not going to be remotely keen on dropping 200
> notes on doing so.
> > The RSGB could quite easily release, say, the archives of 1925 to
1980 as a
> curated “historical importance” collection, and use it to leverage interest
> in the hobby and goodwill to the Society, and lose essentially no income.
>

It could, but as it has already invested in making the CDs and selling
them, then not protecting this investment could be seen by an accountant
as negligent.

At least they make them available. The owners of the Radio Constructor
copyrights was not happy when I asked about making them available on CD
even though they are on the internet.

> The notion of “protecting” their copyright by locking these archives down
> is, IMO, a flawed argument; copyright is copyright and it doesn’t
> spontaneously dissolve if the legal holder of the copyright can’t or won’t
> hound infringers (case in point; there are many software titles that cannot
> be reissued or rereleased as the legal entities that held the copyright (ie
> the software houses that paid the coders to make the games) have long since
> gone belly up and are, therefore, unable to sign off on it). Of course,
> IANAL, so YMMV.
>

Generally when a firm goes under, the copyright goes somewhere. In the
UK there is an "Orphan Copyright Scheme" which allows copies to be made
if the copyright holder can't be traced...

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/copyright-orphan-works

Dave
G4UGM

[Ian Jackson]

In message <q8dqrg$dbd$1...@dont-email.me>, Brian Reay <no...@m.com> writes

Does this not indicate that, for most people, 'yesterday's news' is
worthless?

If RadCom was my daily newspaper, while I might object to someone
reading it before I did, I would then happily give it away -even if
only to wrap fish and chips in. I'm certainly not going to hold onto it
(or maybe shred* it) unless someone pays me for it.
[*I seem to recall that, in 2011, the RSGB actually did dump most of
their library and collection of archive material.]

>>>
>>> The bottom line is, people want the CDs for free, in the same way people
>>> don't like paying for music CDs etc.

It's not a perfect comparison. I listen to some music again and again
and again, but I'm unlikely to repeatedly want to read the same archive
articles. It's more likely to be once, and maybe not again for a
considerable time (if ever).

>> Nope. People want to casually while away their time perusing
>>interesting
>> material; they’re simply not going to be remotely keen on dropping 200
>> notes on doing so.
>
>So it is £20 per CD, still not a fortune and there is still the option
>of free magazines.
>
>It still comes down to people expecting a freebee, or more exactly, the
>members to forego the proceeds (no matter how modest) which help fund
>services etc their subs otherwise would have to increase to fund.

I'm all for the RSGB maximising its income, but as I have said, does the
RSGB really make much from selling the older archive material -
especially when balanced against the publicity it might provide, and the
interest it might engender? Surely it's essentially a niche market
-invaluable to someone doing a PhD in the history and development of
radio and electronics, but only of passing interest for most others -
and certainly not something they are going to spend (say) £179.00 for
the RSGB Complete 1925-2010 Archive Set, just to have available for the
occasional look-at.
--
Ian

[Brian Howie]

On 07/04/2019 16:24, Ian Jackson wrote:

> But how many CDs of particularly the older material does the RSGB sell?
> If it's hardly any, and it's more trouble than it's worth, then they
> might as well generously do the whole amateur movement a good turn, and
> stick it on americanradiohistory.com.
>
> On the other hand, if it actually IS a respectable source of income,
> then as a 60-year continuous member I can hardly object to them looking
> after the Society's interests, and charging for it.

It seems RSGB members can get free electronic copies of articles.


https://rsgbshop.org/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Radcom___QST_17.html

"RadCom Articles

It is possible to purchase printed copies of old RadCom articles.

You must be able to identify the article required to use this

/SNIP


Please note that RSGB Members may request electronic copies of articles
at no charge by contacting rad...@rsgb.org.uk . This service is not
available to non RSGB members." And quite rightly.

This is good, as more often than not it's a specific article I want,
e.g. recently I wanted a copy of the G3JVL loop yagi article from the
70's. I got it enventually after a bit of asking about.

However I don't think there is a searchable index online to find a
particular article, unless anyone knows.

Brian
--
Brian

[Ian Jackson]

In message <q8hqg1$1hv$1...@dont-email.me>, Brian Howie
<nos...@b-howie.co.uk> writes

It's good of them to provide such a service, but it's not quite the same
as being able to have a casual look through some usually ancient archive
material.
--
Ian

[bilou]

Il se trouve que Ian Jackson a formulé :

> It's a pity that the RSGB is not big-hearted enough to make RadCom etc freely
> available online - say when it's 10 years old.
>
> I know that they do it on disk as payware, but I can't believe that the older
> archived material is anything like being a 'nice little earner'.
>
> I'd love to consign at least 50 of my 60 yearsworth to the recycling skip,
> but I'd also like to have them available for the highly unlikely event that I
> might ever find time to take the occasional quick trip down memory lane

I totally agree.
As a consolation (or an example) look here:
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/index.htm

[Ian Jackson]

In message <q8t73s$84b$1...@gioia.aioe.org>, bilou <pad...@free.fr> writes

Already well-used! I've downloaded all my old copies of my amateur radio
magazines (plus a lot more).
--
Ian