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Home -> Articles -> Datacom History Datacom - The BARTG Magazine BARTG was launched back in 1959 by a group of enthusiasts keen to explore the new technology of RTTY within amateur radio. BARTG has always been a self-help group in which members help each other to learn and develop their skills and understanding of datacoms within amateur radio. It was only natural that BARTG would publish a magazine in order for members to keep in touch and disseminate information. The very first "News Sheet" by BARTG carried a date of June 1959. It explained that RTTY was already well established in the USA and explained that:
By the way, Teletype soon became Teleprinter when the Teletype Corporation made BARTG aware that Teletype was a trademark. John, GW4SKA, may have more to add about the earliest News Sheets thanks to his collection of them. When G4EAN became a member of BARTG in the 1970s BARTG was publishing its "Newsletter" every quarter, with cover dates of March, June, September and December. This Newsletter was of A5 format and had less than 28 pages. The December 1980 issue saw a change of editor and subsequent issues grew in page count. The increased workload for the editor eventually showed itself in the non-appearance of the March 1982 issue and a "bumper" issue dated July 1982 in which there was a plea for assistance for the editor! Shortly thereafter we had another change of editor and 1983 saw the Newsletter change to a seasonal basis (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter) instead of carrying a month on the cover. The Spring 1984 issue carried a centrefold, on blue paper, announcing BARTG's Silver Jubilee and presenting an overview of both BARTG and datacoms. By this time each issue was carrying around 100 pages We always tried to have different cover colours to identify each year and with the 1988 issues we tried to use appealing and intriguing graphical designs for each issue. This was also the year when BARTG underwent another change of name and became the British Amateur Radio Teledata Group. With the Spring 1992 issue Datacom changed from being a stapled magazine and became a magazine with a spine. This was partly because it had reached the limits for stapling but also because the spine, complete with title and date printed on it, did look rather good on the shelf. It was in this issue that "PACKET INTERNATIONAL" made its first appearance. Occupying 24 pages on distinctive blue pages this section aimed to cover the world of digital / computer communications within amateur radio. Eventually, editorial constraints meant that the section was absorbed into the general pages of Datacom. The spine lasted until 2000 when Datacom lost its spine and reverted to staples. The next big change was with the Spring 2002 issue which, after another change of editor, appeared as an A4 format using a spiral binding to make it easier to read on the shack bench. Later in this year an even bigger change took place (after yet another change of editor) because Datacom broke away from its quarterly publication cycle and went monthly! This was proposed at the BGM held that year and it was hoped that the more frequent publication of Datacom would get news to BARTG members more quickly! The vastly increased editorial workload was seen, by the editor himself, as a challenge that could be met. Datacom duly appeared each month but the editor was finding it harder to get articles for each issue. Eventually, in 2006 and after publication became somewhat sporadic, it was agreed by the committee that Datacom was no longer viable as a paper-based publication. The shortage of copy meant there could only be fewer issues, published at wide intervals and this was in direct conflict with the need to publish news about contests and Dxpeditions as soon as possible. The solution was to move Datacom
onto the BARTG web site and this brings us to the current state of Datacom.
No longer will Datacom come though the letterbox. You simply come to the
BARTG web site and go to the Datacom pages for the latest news and articles. The next obvious question is "now that Datacom is based on the BARTG web site, how will the editor get articles for it"? The answer is that Datacom has changed formats a lot but it remains dependent on the members of BARTG and on datacoms enthusiasts for the majority of its content. It is down to the readers of Datacom to produce the articles needed for Datacom. The new, web based Datacom,
requires just the same types of articles as its paper-based predecessors:
Datacom depends on its readers for its continued existence so now that you have read about Datacom why not consider if you can become a contributor to Datacom? 73, Ian G4EAN. |