Dear Editor,
I wonder how many subscribers remember that RCR actually started out as a monthly magazine called TwoWay Radio Dealer?
I occasionally look at RCR online and saw the 20-year `call.’
Congratulations.
The company I managed at that time (Vega) not only advertised in TwoWay RadioDealer, but I also wrote several technical articles during its short lifetime. We even had the front cover once.
While at a trade show in Chicago in 1980, the marketing manager of TwoWay RadioDealer confidentially advised me that the format was going to change to a bi-weekly tabloid format because there were too many monthly magazines on the market (Communications News and Communications) to be successful. I agreed with him there was a need between the daily Phillips `yellow sheets’ and the monthly magazines because the industry needed current information, but the Phillips newsletter was too expensive for most small companies. When he said that RCR was going to be 100-percent advertiser supported, I knew they were on the right track.
Interestingly, the two magazines RCR was competing against have since left the wireless scene. The editor also left about the time of the new format. Some of the first issues were only eight pages. RCR later became a weekly.
I doubt if there is anyone around RCR now that remembers those humble beginnings, but I thought you might be interested.
Jack Daniel
The Jack Daniel Company
RF Solutions
Editor’s Note: You are right in that today no one from RCR Wireless News was ever employed by TwoWay RadioDealer, but RCR was started as a sister publication to TwoWay RadioDealer. RCR Wireless News is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2001. Send your wireless memories to Kristen Beckman at kbeckman@crain.com.
