I’ve been a member of the British Amateur Television Club for over six years, and to be honest, my knowledge of the technical side of transmitting a television signal could be written on a postage stamp.
However for over five years now, I’ve been the Editor of the BATC quarterly magazine – CQ-TV. I say my official title is Editor… to be honest I’m really just the paste-up artist putting the content on the pages in a reasonable style! However, it’s certainly something I know a little about and I really enjoy laying out the pages.
The magazine regularly runs to 44 pages, now in full colour throughout, thanks to modern digital printing techniques. Printing? Yes, despite being received by the 1,000 BATC members as a digital download (PDF), there are still almost 400 members that also like to receive it as a printed, physical magazine.
This does lead to a few considerations having to be made in the design of the magazine. Everything has to be CMYK, you can’t include animation or video, unless it’s a link to online content, you have to conform to the ‘rule of 4’ for the number of pages, and the format has to be portrait – A4 considered to be the most economic in terms of paper and postage. Considering it’s mailed to 30 overseas members, the weight of the magazine is a critical factor, and this limits the extent each edition to 44 pages in order to meet the postage limits, whilst retaining a reasonable stock for the text pages.
The biggest problem with a 44 page quarterly magazine, is the content required to fill these pages. Whilst I have an interest in video production, there are only so many pages I can write on the topic – and the focus of the BATC is really on the technical transmission side of the hobby. So I depend on technical authors to keep me supplied with content.
Recently the BATC held their annual conference – CAT20. Usually a weekend event consisting of lectures on topics of interest; workshops to diagnose problems with the delegates projects; a ‘bring and buy’ area; and the opportunity to spend the weekend discussing ideas with like-minded souls. This year however the conference had to be an online affair – so without the chance to chat to individuals and persuade them to write an article for the magazine, I decided it needed a video promo, to be played between the lecture sessions to try and persuade folks to write something. Did it work? I don’t know yet, but I hope so. Here’s the promo for your enjoyment!