RIP: PopComm, CQ VHF, WorldRadio Online

CQ Communications, Inc. announced today that "Effective with the February 2014 issue of CQ, 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.'"

Which means that CQ Communications will no longer publish Popular Communications, CQ VHF, and WorldRadio Online.

I subscribe to all three and enjoy reading them, but I will miss Popular Communications the most. On a monthly basis, I probably read more of PopComm than all the other radio rags I subscribe to put together.

It's too bad.

CQ CQ

Early last year, I began transitioning my magazine subscriptions from paper to digital format. Among others, I have digital subscriptions to the complete CQ stable of magazines, i.e., CQ, CQ VHF, Popular Communications and WorldRadio Online.

Typically, the monthlies arrive around the first of the month, but this month, CQ and Popular Communications are no-shows. WorldRadio Online arrived around Halloween, but three weeks later, that's all, folks.

I e-mailed CQ, but have not received a reply.

Have any of you received the digital November 2013 issues of CQ and Popular Communications or are you in the same paperless both as I?

UPDATE: Would you believe that the digital November issues of CQ and Popular Communications arrived late this afternoon about four hours after this post was originally published. What a coincidence!

I Spy with RDFT

Reading "Coak and Dagger: More Cuban Spy Broadcasts" in the July issue of Popular Communications, writer Steven Handler mentioned that Cuban spy stations transmit data using "Redundant Digital File Transfer (RDFT), a digital mode developed for amateur radio operators."

I need to get out more because I was not familiar with RDFT. In fact, I had never heard of it.

A little Googling and I discovered that RDFT was the first digital modulation signal format for digital SSTV and was the brain child of Barry Sanderson, KB9VAK. I plead ignorance because SSTV is one of the few ham radio modes I have not tried. (After all, who wants to see my mug? I might get an FCC citation for scaring the kids.)

Chapter 9 of Image Communications on Short Waves also known as the "SSTV Handbook," a freely downloadable e-book by Martin Bruchanov, OK2MNM, covers RDFT.

There is also a YouTube video of a recording of a Cuban numbers station using RDFT on July 24, 2011, on 9063 kHz in the AM mode.

Beyond RDFT, Rick Muething, KN6KB, proffered SCAMP (Sound Card Amateur Message Protocol) at the 2004 Digital Communications Conference (DCC).  "SCAMP leverages the work by Barry Sanderson, KB9VAK and employs an ARQ 'wrapper' around Barry's Redundant Digital File Transfer (RDFT) scheme to provide the error-free automatic operation necessary for today's modern digital message systems.

Until next time, keep on surfin'!

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Surfin’: Listening Anew

This week, Surfin’ describes how to become a PopComm monitoring station and obtain another call sign to boot.