Grid Watch UK

Saturday 28 January 2017

PW makes an appearance at WH Smith

Until recently Practical Wireless was only available on the newsstand at larger branches of WH Smith. Getting hold of a copy proved useless at smaller branches unless you had it reserved in advance, infact I gave up many years ago asking why it wasn't present every month?  In the end I got a local corner newsagent to reserve it for me, I guess he has been grateful of the business ever since.




However could the tide of policy changed it's direction at my local small branch of WH Smith and others? PW is once again available on the shelf, forefront, alongside with it's sister magazine Radiouser.

Practical Wireless is the only independent magazine representing the amateur radio hobby in the UK, it is good to see someone has finally done something to get it back where it belongs, so a new generation can peruse and purchase it along with us old timers.

Friday 27 January 2017

IO IO it's off Yahoo groups we go!

With all the recent Yahoo data breach furore and various problems at times of access to Yahoo groups, many Amateur Radio groups are turning their backs on Yahoo and moving to a new group service.

Groups.io is the new place where Hams and I guess many others are moving their discussion groups from Yahoo. I was first notified over a month ago that QRPLABS was moving over, I created an account with groups.io and sure enough if by magic it apppeared in my new groups.io account. Using it has become very easy and straight forward, and I find it doesn't suffer from the access lag that Yahoo groups suffered. Since joining, the BITX20 group has also moved and so have a few others, I expect many others will follow.   

Groups.io has a full automated transfer service for groups that wish to transfer over:https://groups.io/static/transfer  I have not used the transfer myself, but all the groups that have moved I am member of that have chosen to move to the new service appear to have gone over smooth, and they popped into my group.io account.