eevBLAB #61 - The Demise Of Electronics Australia

And you are probably saying, if I only could have waited another month before I thought of that...

I used to buy every copy in New Zealand in the 90's, along with Wireless World and New Scientist from the UK, and, when it came out, Wired. Nowadays everything is either freely available online or I don't see it.

What would have been the most popular kit project from EA?

Many electronics magazines have gone this route, even Elektor has going this route now.
Electronics Today International in the UK has been reprinting Silicon chip articles for the last several years.

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Hey why did you removed the video #1193 KICAD PCB?

We still have Elektor, probably the best magazine and Circuit Cellar, also great. RIP Popular Electronics, Radio Electronics, and many others. I'd say Chips but when the schematics are gone the magazine isn't an electronics magazine anymore.

I hope you checked the roof at your new location !

I had one of those programmable Marantz remote controllers!

I remember this magazine now the only one I read is silicon chip

Thanks Dave. I can't speak for you in Aus., 'cuz I'm a Yank, but the demise of our electronics and science journals parallel's the demise of American society in general: plunging IQ, loss of love for self and family, hedonism, mass-insanity, etc. The usual. I blame it on the demise of the magazines. Or did the magazines die because society began to? Yeah, that one

Nice trip down memory lane, must be very nostalgic! Cheers to Silicon Chip!

Did Dave just say "SJW"? Yikes.

Well if we think objectively.. in this day magazines are shite. You can find fun projects on the internet (usually for free) and you can even look at videos of people building stuff or teardowns for free. You can discuss in almost real time on forums as well. A magazine really has a hard time competing and when you fill it with 90% advertisement crap it's obvious that people just say "No, thanks." and go look on the web for hobby stuff.

Kiwi here - in my early teens (early 90s) I used to buy EA (and Silicon Chip) if there were interesting projects in it; used to get older issues at the local library as well. Also remember reading Tom Moffat's articles with interest. Of course some of the projects were available in kit form at our local Dick Smiths so that was more exposure as well. A great magazine, I missed its demise but sad to see that it tried to move more mainstream and then failed as a result. I suspect a lot of magazines of that era have suffered similar fates though, much of it at the hands of the internet I suppose. Thanks for the trip down memory lane :)

Publishers ruin everything with greed, especially video games.

My brother in-law paid for a subscription to Popular Electronics for me when I was about 12 years old. I have sinse retired from a long carreer in electronics thanks in part to that his kindness.

Half a crown ain't a bad price. Much better than that dollar nonsense.

Glad this never happened with Practical Electronics, still going strong with great projects every publication, even after a few name changes.

Electronics Australia / EA: the magazine version of Maplin.

electronics world (formerly and stil know by geeks as wireless world ) magazine can trace its history back to 1911 and is still published i believe .

What happened:
Electronics Australia used to be owned by a private company, but it "went public" and the shares were bought by idiots who turned it into nothing more than 200+ pages of advertising with maybe 20 pages of "articles" at the end which were really nothing more than extended advertisements.

There was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING of any note which was comparable between Electronics Australia and this fugly bastard child spawned by money-grubbers raping our once-attractive maiden. Only one humane solution was possible: Euthenasia.

Australians may not be the smartest of people, but even we Aussies aren't silly enough to pay out our hard-earned to read nothing but advertisements. The subscribers cancelled in droves and the whole thing went bankrupt in under a year. The remains were purchased for the proverbial song by the only remaining privately owned electronics magazine still sold in Australia, Silicon Chip.

RIP:EA. Good riddance, bastard child; it's a pity you didn't die a lot faster.

I remember the TV repair columns in Electronics Australia in the 1980’s. It was the reason I wanted to be an electrical engineer, and actually did a year of engineering at Uni because of it. I’m pretty sad that Dave decided to use the term “SJW” as if it is a pejorative. Definitely makes me rethink whether I should stay subscribed or watch more if he thinks that way.

:(

Nice video...:) Here in germany the electronics mag´s heydays had been the 80th....ELEKTRONIK, FUNKAmateur, ELRAD, ELO where still around and elektor was doing great....but by the end of the 80s ELRAD died slowly and also ELO was no longer available, ELRAD´s last issue was around 1996 if i remember correctly...Only elektor was there, and of course FUNKSCHAU (started 1929) but it´s lighty different, as it always covered new designs, new gear, inventions and components...

EA didn't move with the times. Just how many power supplies and amplifiers does someone need to build? I remember the letters to the editor lamenting that projects were all going the way of programming ICs to do the work. Well, that's just how it is.

It was unfortunate, but even the electronics suppliers (Dick Smith and Tandy come to mind) were going in this direction as they could see the dollars just aren't in hobbyist electronics. The profit margins were in the consumer electronics (computers, phones etc). They didn't give two shits whether someone came in for 5 resistors to finish off their power supply. I'm surprised Jaycar hasn't gone the same way and glad they're still going.
But also around this time the internet was in full swing which opened up the doors to international parts supply (which was great as we had two parts of F-all in Oz).
Moving forward a few more years, I hardly design anything these days. I'll just get on ebay, find a module that does what I want and piece those together. I get the project up and running faster, generally don't have to fault find and ends up cheaper than buying the parts individually.
I can remember photocopying audio project as an apprentice (which I still have) and building. I never got around to all of them, but there was some good guitar/bass and audio projects. In fact, I've still got a playmaster 300W power amp module still running as PA that only just got retired (after 30 years). It's powered a lot of projects from a guitar amp, relegated to a bass amp then to a PA for 20 of those 30 years.

Very popular in NZ, both Electronics Australia and Silicon Chip. wow so many of those kits I built back in the day, that 15+15w stereo amplifier on one of the covers is the last remaining operating one to this day though I have plenty of the DSE wireless mics ready to be built somewhere.

I grew up in the UK and subscribed to ETI from the age of about 14 (mid 80s). Stopped buying it in the mid 90s because the same thing happened, the mag became all about new tech and less about getting down and dirty with a soldering iron. In some ways it was similar to what happened to Dick Smith stores. We can only hope that Jaycar and Altronics never head this way.

Transistor was invented 60 yrs ago, nothing new has happened since then except cramming more of them into smaller space, and even that has come to its end. We need new inventions to follow in the footsteps of semiconductor. Optical or photonic devices were supposed to be the next advancement in electronics...

The ETI magazine was also published in Dutch for a while, I was subscribed to it.
Especially in the beginning it was interesting as they translated the best articles from the issues that already had appeared in Australia.
It was done by the Dutch company "Rotor" who had some electronics stores and also manufactured low-end measurement equipment and kits.

Might be worth noting that Silicon Chip bought the rights to EA 1968-200 and ETI 1971-1990 from the wastes that were left behind, you can get a hold of articles (not sure about whole magazines) in electronic format via their website.

Dave carryng the tource to the next gen

You can buy a cd of the radio and hobbies series of magazines from silicon chip magazine , well worth it if you like nostalgia or old radios and the like .

It seems like my once beloved c’t magazine (German) took the same plunge in or around 2016.

I lost interest when they started publishing computer projects and stuff using microprocessors.

Read it here in NZ

I guess they were seeing a decline in sales and saw the future as product reviewers instead due to the shrinking electronic hobbyist and enthusiast market. That also applies to the consumer electronic servicing industry where most equipment is becoming uneconomical to repair and is replaced instead. The future market for those with an interest in electronics is probably not going to be in the repair industry so is even less attractive to future generations. If the market"s not there it's prudent to diversify or move on entirely to avoid the inevitable...disappearing altogether.

Used to love reading the 'Moffat's Madhouse' column. Also loved the electronics crossword, always challenging.

I just found out EA were no longer publishing ..
He's the thing....newsagents used to be full of folk browsing all manner of magazines ..and occasionally making a purchase. Now the only business they do is lotto ...even the adult section is deserted. As prof SM used to say.."Why is it so "..?

I reckon the golden age for Aussie electronics mags was the 70' & 80's when both EA and ETI were going strong.
And wasn't there periods when there were 3 or even 4 mags? (maybe SC and Roger Harrisons' something or other?)

All magazines about Electronics here in Brazil, are now defunct.

In France all the electonics magazines are now Raspberry Pi things. And the projects described are mostly "plug the right module in your Raspberry and download the program from our website".

Would you happen to know of a website where I can download the entire collection of EA/EAT in PDF? I would love to read them

Also, Wikipedia must be incorrect, it says that the final issue was in March 2000

You never really clearly stated why you became dissatisfied with the magazine. I watched up to the 9 minute mark.