EMRFD Message Archive 2863
Message Date From Subject 2863 2009-04-04 08:10:27 Mike Czuhajewski Less than stellar publishing quality
While we're on the subject of proofreading and the mechanics of laying out a publication, did anyone else buy the ARRL compendium of previously published amplifier articles a few years back? I did and the shortcomings on the publishing side were immediately obvious and rather glaring. It certainly was not of the quality that I would expect from the ARRL. I don't believe I have ever said a single word in public about this book; it's the old principle of "if you can't say something good, don't say anything at all" and about the only good thing I could have said was that all of the republished articles were in English so I didn't have to have any of them translated :-) I had to bite my tongue fairly hard to keep from posting anything about it at the time. I have no idea if it went to a second printing with the shortcomings corrected, so if you buy one today you may not see what I did, but a few people I've talked with over the years know what I'm referring to.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]2864 2009-04-04 08:46:21 Art Re: Less than stellar publishing quality
every single chapter. A few of the errors needed correction, but the
vast majority were cosmetic and not significant. I had no problem
with the quality of the first printing and plan to read it again in
the future, although not from cover to cover the second time around.
The only thing I wished for was an electronic search function. In
other words, if I want to search for a given keyword, I'd like to be
able to do it and have software that would return a list of pages
those particular keywords appeared on. I DO NOT mean that it should
have been published in a PDF, I mean a stand alone search program
that only returns a list of pages (without displaying the actual text
on those pages) would have been a great addition to the enclosed CD.
Enjoy.
Art
>In reply to Re: EMRFD Revised First Edition--
>
>While we're on the subject of proofreading and the mechanics of
>laying out a publication,2865 2009-04-04 08:59:06 Robert Cerreto Re: Less than stellar publishing quality
ARRL publications in the last number of years have become much prettier as they continue to add more managers, vice presidents, wanna be CEO's etc. Unfortunately, their technical and editorial quality has taken a nose dive. One can no longer trust what they publish. If my tech writing people proof read as well as theirs, they would be looking for another job. And, there have also been a number of big technical goofs. Too bad for the authors. Most of the authors are great people and it is a shame to see their talents masked by sloppy basic editing skills.
'nuf said otherwise I will get depressed.
73, Bob WA!FXT
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2866 2009-04-04 09:18:38 Chris Trask Re: Less than stellar publishing quality
> ARRL publications in the last number of years have become much prettier as
> they continue to add more managers, vice presidents, wanna be CEO's etc.
> Unfortunately, their technical and editorial quality has taken a nose
> One can no longer trust what they publish. If my tech writing people prooftalents
> read as well as theirs, they would be looking for another job. And, there
> have also been a number of big technical goofs. Too bad for the authors.
> Most of the authors are great people and it is a shame to see their
> masked by sloppy basic editing skills.Sounds like they may have inherited a number of former Motorola
>
employees. It certainly sounds like they now have the same low quality of
technical ability together with the excess management. :{b
Chris
,----------------------. High Performance Mixers and
/ What's all this \ Amplifiers for RF Communications
/ extinct stuff, anyhow? /
\ _______,--------------' Chris Trask / N7ZWY
_