Sign of the times – magazine goes QRT

After nearly 26 years, MEGAHERTZ magazine of France has closed due to increasing production and distribution costs, and market factors.

An editorial by co-founder Sylvio Faurez Feem says internet globalisation also dealt a fatal blow by its facilitation of direct equipment imports bypassing and weakening local dealers, that reduced their ability to advertise.

The ham radio magazine also suffered from pirating, says the editorial, in the form of multiple photocopies of the whole magazine distributed at clubs, readily available scans of coveted articles and duplication of its annual compact disc.

MEGAHERTZ was one of France’s oldest printed magazines and well respected as a specialist publication by francophone’s inside and outside that country.

The editorial also refers to the size of the domestic market with France only having 16,000 radio amateurs out of a population of 65 million.

The demise of the magazine comes after years of rigid financial control but with accumulated losses and ever increasing costs its closure was a fait au compli.

MEGAHERTZ is in the publication graveyard alongside Anglophone notables, 73 magazine, Ham Radio and Amateur Radio Action.


Jim Linton VK3PC
Wireless Institute of Australia