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SILICON SILIC CHIP www.siliconchip.com.au Editorial Viewpoint Bringing Practical Electronics (PE) magazine into the fold Publisher/Editor Nicholas Vinen Technical Editor John Clarke – B.E.(Elec.) Technical Staff Jim Rowe – B.A., B.Sc. Bao Smith – B.Sc. Tim Blythman – B.E., B.Sc. Advertising Enquiries (02) 9939 3295 adverts<at>siliconchip.com.au Regular Contributors Allan Linton-Smith Dave Thompson David Maddison – B.App.Sc. (Hons 1), PhD, Grad.Dip.Entr.Innov. Geoff Graham Associate Professor Graham Parslow Dr Hugo Holden – B.H.B, MB.ChB., FRANZCO Ian Batty – M.Ed. Phil Prosser – B.Sc., B.E.(Elec.) Cartoonist Louis Decrevel loueee.com Founding Editor (retired) Leo Simpson – B.Bus., FAICD Silicon Chip is published 12 times a year by Silicon Chip Publications Pty Ltd. ACN 626 922 870. ABN 20 880 526 923. All material is copyright ©. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. Subscription rates (Australia only) 6 issues (6 months): $70 12 issues (1 year): $127.50 24 issues (2 years): $240 Online subscription (Worldwide) 6 issues (6 months): $52.50 12 issues (1 year): $100 24 issues (2 years): $190 For overseas rates, see our website or email silicon<at>siliconchip.com.au * recommended & maximum price only Editorial office: Unit 1 (up ramp), 234 Harbord Rd, Brookvale, NSW 2100. Postal address: PO Box 194, Matraville, NSW 2036. Phone: (02) 9939 3295. ISSN: 1030-2662 Printing and Distribution: You might have seen Practical Electronics magazine at the newsagent before. Based in the UK, it was established in 1964. Since the early 2000s, they have been licensing some of our content (mainly projects) for their magazine, alongside their locally-developed content. The owner of the current publisher, Electron Publishing, is now retiring and shutting down his business. Rather than ending the magazine’s 60-year run, we have agreed to take it over. The move made sense since PE already uses quite a bit of Silicon Chip content. They will remain essentially separate magazines, with PE continuing to have a significant amount of content originating from authors in the UK and Europe. PE will still republish our content because it has few native project article submissions. This should not affect Silicon Chip, except that we may occasionally elect to publish articles from PE authors that we think are particularly good and suitable for our readers. This is unlikely to replace any of our content (as we still have plenty!) but might augment it. For example, if we have enough articles for a 104-page issue, we might decide to add roughly eight pages of content from PE and turn it into a 112page issue. The biggest challenge in doing that is that many articles in PE are long-running series, making it difficult to just occasionally pick one to use. Even though this change is not likely to have much impact on Silicon Chip readers, I thought they would still like to be made aware of it. We have been having difficulty selling items to customers in the UK due to changes to their VAT (value-added tax) laws that occurred a couple of years ago (post-Brexit). We’re hoping to be able to solve that soon; while we do not have any physical UK presence, the fact that we’re doing some business there now might allow us to overcome that unfortunate problem. Minor price adjustments I had hoped to avoid increasing any prices this year. However, we’re still under pressure to do so. Australia Post recently increased their charges for mailing magazines quite substantially (letter rates went up 25% less than a year after the last price increase!) Still, I know that many people are under financial pressure due to the crazy cost-of-living expenses we are now suffering, so we can’t increase our prices too much and risk making the magazine unaffordable. We will only increase the cost of print and combined subscriptions by a small amount to partially cover the higher postage costs. The new prices are shown below. A 12-month print or combined subscription only increases by $2.50 per year, while six-month subscription prices remain the same (see the sidebar). If you renew before October 1st, you can take advantage of the existing, slightly lower prices. Online subscription prices are not changing. However, we will be rounding up the print magazine’s cover price to $13 starting with the October issue this year, to compensate for inflation. New Prices Print (AU) Combined (AU) Print (NZ) Combined (NZ) 12 months $130 $150 $155 $175 24 months $245 $280 $290 $325 Prices from October 1st, 2024; all prices are listed in Australian dollars (AUD). by Nicholas Vinen 24-26 Lilian Fowler Pl, Marrickville 2204 2 Silicon Chip Australia's electronics magazine siliconchip.com.au