>> I believe EA joined ETI, and that too went downhill, shifting
>> towards PCs rather than electronics
>
>They kind of had to.  PCs were taking over, and interest in electronics
>was fading (or so it seems).  Both mags eventually died, and I'm sorry
>they're gone.  I don't agree with "good riddance" - one poor project
>doesn't overcome the many good projects that EA published over the years.

I must admit that I sucked up much useful information from EA over the 
years. My father started getting it when I was at primary school, and the 
many projects that were presented in the time he purchased the magazine were 
fuel for my young mind. The projects covered such a wide range, from 
building a kitset Hammond electronic organ through their own designs of TV 
set, many stereo amplifiers over the years, both valve and transistor, and 
including a transistor Class A 5 watt unit, through many Ham transmitters 
and receivers, many of which were world class units, to the more unusual 
projects which introduced other less known concepts. Through all this they 
had the backing of the local Australian electronics industry to produce 
PCBs, transformers and kits, and making sure suitable components were 
obtainable.

But the first read column almost every time a new copy arrived was "The 
Serviceman who tells", a column written by a real serviceman who ran a 
repair shop in one of the Sydney suburbs, and wrote about various unusual 
faults he found, and the techniques used in fixing them. He also had a bunch 
of mates in the trade, who knowing he wrote under that pseudonym, would pass 
on various interesting bits they had come across as well. His style of 
writing was just so right for getting across the story of the fault, and 
dealing with the awkward customer who he thought was seeing or hearing 
non-existent things - only to have a real fault show up on the TV set or 
whatever.

It is a magazine that I was sorry to see disappear as it merged with ETI, 
but then times were achanging, and their target market was rapidly 
disappearing. In its heyday it really was one of the good ones. 

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