The Spectrum Monitor: a new radio magazine finds a home in the digital world

The SpectrumMonitorI’m happy to announce that there is a new radio magazine on the horizon: The Spectrum Monitor (TSM).

The Spectrum Monitor, an e-magazine, will cover  amateur radio, longwave and shortwave listening, public service scanning, AM/FM/TV broadcasting, satellites, WiFi radio, vintage radio and more.

I have agreed to be the shortwave radio columnist for The Spectrum Monitor.

Why? TSM is picking up where Monitoring Times (MT) left off, and is being edited and published by MT‘s former managing editor, Ken Reitz (KS4ZR). Reitz has done a fantastic job of retaining the majority of MT‘s excellent writers and columnists. When he asked if I would be interested in taking over the shortwave radio column, his integrity and that of Monitoring Times helped me make a confident decision.

Best yet, I will have free reign to write about in-depth topics that I choose. Like Monitoring Times before it, The Spectrum Monitor will allow their columnists true editorial freedom.

The Spectrum Monitor Press Release

Ken Reitz published the following press release today at noon; if you enjoy the topics here, I encourage you to check out The Spectrum Monitor.

TheSpectrumMonitorPRESS RELEASE

10-23-13
For Immediate Release
Contact: Ken Reitz
e-mail: ks4zr1 [at] gmail.com
Phone: 540-967-2469

NEW RADIO MAGAZINE TO LAUNCH

A new electronic publication, The Spectrum Monitor, will follow the final issue of Monitoring Times, a paper and electronic publication covering amateur, shortwave and scanner-related topics, which ceases publication after a thirty-three year run following the retirement of its publisher, Bob Grove.

Managing editor, Ken Reitz KS4ZR, made the announcement in the November issue of Monitoring Times. “As the accolades poured in, all readers, regardless of how long they had been subscribers, expressed sadness and dismay at the closure of the magazine. I came to believe that there might be enough interest to warrant continuing the publication in some other form. I took it upon myself to explore the possibility of a follow-on magazine, not connected with Monitoring Times or Grove Enterprises, it’s publisher.”

The Spectrum Monitor will debut with the January 2014 issue, on December 15, 2013, and will carry virtually all of the current Monitoring Times columnists and feature writers. Reitz noted, “These are the experts in all facets of radio who have helped make MT the best, full-spectrum magazine available and we are all excited about continuing our work for the new publication.”

The Spectrum Monitor will be available only as an electronic publication in PDF format which may be read on any desktop, laptop, iPad™, Kindle Fire™ or any other device capable of opening a PDF file. Details on how to become a charter subscriber may be found at www.thespectrummonitor.com.

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17 thoughts on “The Spectrum Monitor: a new radio magazine finds a home in the digital world

  1. MikeP

    While I prefer printed reading material as others here do, I’ll take it! I get that, in this day and age, an e-magazine for smaller publications (not Time or People sized readership) makes sense.
    I, for some reason, didn’t know until now (late 2019) that Spectrum Monitor existed. Having been a pretty avid fan and reader of Monitoring Times, I will be partaking in this e-magazine!

    Reply
  2. Paul A. Alpiser

    Since The Spectrum Monitor is available as a PDF, does that mean it can be printed? It’s not that I would want to kill more trees, but there are times in which I would like to read, without being chained to technology. In fact, my employer does not allow personally-owned technology on company property, for security reasons. Printed material, on the other hand is allowed.

    Reply
    1. Bill

      I hope you are kidding about the “killing trees…” comment. Trees used for making paper and most paper products are grown specifically for just that purpose. Those misguided fools who, although some time in the past “protested” abouit everything and anything were doing so for the protest. They had NO idea what they were talking about or protesting about.

      Reply
      1. Paul

        Bill, I was simply asking if the pages could be saved as PDF files, so that I could pick & chose what to print, so as to not waste printing things that I was not interested in. My post was from 2016 – 5 years ago. I was not looking to protest for the sake of protesting, but obvious you have nothing better to do, than to find something to pick at. ‘Karens’ always complain & cry foul about something.
        I guess ‘Bills’ are the male counterpart, that typically think with their ass. Now you should have something to complain about. Have a Nice Day! 🙂

        Reply
    1. Fritz

      I still much prefer a hard copy as well. I sit at the damn computer screen enough the way it is. An actual paper magazine you can bring with you and sit anywhere you like and does not need power to work.

      Reply
  3. Ernest Abell

    Formatting on kindle is a nightmare for a publisher. I prefer PDF because of its portability and ease of accessing on any computer OS be it desktop or mobile. You can save it, and upload it to a cloud storage and access it anywhere, on any available machine. If you do not publish you will not understand the problems of formatting and

    Reply
  4. Ernest Abell

    I have the ability to read ebooks/magazines in any format, and I find PDF to be the best. I can save it to my computer, I can store it on dropbox and access it anywhere on any machine and read. Other formats are not that accessible, cannot be readable that easily. Also kindle is poor on their formatting, as I have published on kindle and the formating is crazy. Typically if you only read and do not publish you do not see or understand the problem of formatting.

    Ernest

    Reply
  5. MikeA

    Concur with previous comment, I have emailed asking for details of which UK card I can use but failed no reply – I’ve used UK visa & Mastercards worldwide – but not here ?????

    Reply
  6. Dallas

    They Need to pull finger out as non USA subscribers are not able to use Credit cards still to get Subs. Sales Dept dosn’t reply to E mails for Help ……Not a Good Start

    Reply
    1. Thomas Post author

      Hi, Tom,

      This is a good point. The Kindle format was explored pretty thoroughly before the new publication was announced. While Kindle publishing has a lot of advantages, it lacks a lot of features that writers wanted in the new magazine. Also, porting the published content from PDF to Kindle is cumbersome and requires a lot of time to fix layout and display issues. The PDF format being used for TSM has been used with MT Express for nearly a decade now.

      Good news is, the PDF format being used by TSM will work on any tablet, computer or e-reader device.

      Indeed, I will use my Kindle Fire to read TSM.

      Hey, thanks for the comment!

      Cheers,
      Thomas

      Reply

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