73 Magazine

Without an Elmer, I depended on magazines to learn about radio.

Before becoming a ham, I read Popular Electronics and Electronics Illustrated to learn about medium and shortwave listening. When I got the ham radio bug, I read CQ and became an Associate Member, that is, an unlicensed member of the ARRL so I could read QST. After I got my ham license (WN1LOU), I became a Full Member of the ARRL and soon had subscriptions to the "big four," that is, 73, CQ, Ham Radio and QST.

73 was the most entertaining of the "big four." It's publisher, Wayne Green, W2NSD, stirred the pot in his monthly editorials. Whether you agreed with Wayne or not, his words were usually interesting and often thought-provoking.

When the FM repeater mode was taking off, 73 covered that mode extensively while the other magazines barely acknowledged the mode. 73 via Wayne also recognized the potential of home computers before most of the rest of us did (and I thank him for getting me interested in computers way back when). And finally, 73 was the first magazine to publish yours truly, which kicked-off my professional writing career.

73 is long gone and although I saved many back issues of the big four, they are tucked away back in a corner of the attic, so they might well be in the Copernicus Crater as far as easy access is concerned.

Good news is that every issue of 73, from October 1960 to May 2003, 519 issues, are now available as pdfs on four DVDs for $14.97 from Amazon.

I ordered the discs on Sunday and they arrived Thursday, so now I won't have to visit my attic or Copernicus to read 73 back issues.