The SWLing Post tips us off to a changing of the guard in one corner of the radio publication world. Monitoring Times is the magazine that has served enthusiasts tuning in to all manner of radio signals, from shortwave, AM and FM to the obscure territories of longwave, amateur satellite and military communications. After 33 years of publication, Monitoring Times’ last issue will be December 2013. The closure is prompted by the retirement of its publisher and founder Bob Grove.
Taking its place beginning January 2014 is The Spectrum Monitor, a monthly electronic magazine in PDF format that will be edited and published by Monitoring Times former managing editor, Ken Reitz. He announced the new publication in the November issue of Monitoring Times, writing, “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.”
According to its website, The Spectrum Monitor will “deliver full-spectrum coverage of amateur radio, long wave and shortwave listening, public service scanning, AM/FM/TV broadcasting, satellites, WiFi radio, vintage radio and more.”
While I’ve never been a subscriber, I have picked up many issues of Monitoring Times over the years. Especially in the years before blogging and social media lowered the bar for entry to internet publishing, MT was one of the most reliable sources for news and information about pirate, unlicensed and clandestine radio. I held on to the May 1996 issue which featured a profile of then three year-old Free Radio Berkeley and its founder Stephen Dunifer at a time when the unlicensed micropower radio movement was beginning to take off around the country.
Even since then the magazine has provided a forum for radio enthusiasts interested in tuning in to signals missed by most audiences, in addition to covering the national and global policies affecting broadcasting and receiving. So it’s good to see that Reitz is willing to pick up the mantle.
