REVIEW: 2007-1

"ARRL QST ON CD-ROM"

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For my first review of the new year, I thought I'd write one about a product that I've always wanted to buy, but hadn't - until a few weeks ago. The product I'm talking about, of course, is the ARRL's "QST's on CD-ROM" .
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For my own personal preferences, I like reading the old fashioned way, however, magazines get torn, folded, lost, and smelly over a period of decades, and I thought it would be cool to be able to have, at my fingertips, a way to pull them up on screen and even search for what I was looking for. My mind was made up though as I noticed that either cheap ink, cheap paper, or both, caused text to be easily smeared (once smeared - always smeared) - so I ordered one set (1995-1999).
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The viewing program installed very quickly and before you could say "QST" I was looking at the cover of January 1995. I was a tad dismayed to find the cover in Black & White, so I poked through the settings to see how to correct it and discovered that it was not possible because it was B&W only. I guess, for most of the years, this would be perfectly normal, but it seemed unsatisfactory for the later years and the (sometimes) glorious color covers. But I got over it. What I couldn't get over was the way the grey scale switch didn't seem to give any perceivable difference in my viewing pleasure (the shades seemed "mushed" together), and this could be because I was viewing it on an LCD monitor vs. a CRT monitor. A few years ago it wouldn't be a big deal, but today LCD screens are very popular. But this is only one Ham's opinion.
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There's not alot to say about the viewer: You can Zoom in or out, and move from page to page, search, or print. I printed out a few pages: some text, some advertisements ("The NEW Icom IC-736") and some mixed pages of text and photos, and it worked just fine.
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Wrap-up:
For someone who doesn't have enough space to keep decades of QST's around, or just to have something preserved digitally, this is rather nice to have, granted expensive, if you wanted every issue. You get 4 years on CD-ROM for $39.95 plus shipping. I don't know if the ARRL ever runs these on sale, but if they do, it makes an even better purchase and perhaps, future issues will be scanned in color!
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RATING: 3-out-of-5 Stars.
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