Ham radio websites might be my favorite genre of website. Their design is always a throwback to the internet of my youth, and they almost always have tons of interesting technical content.
It's interesting how simple advertising is as well.
> Please Support My Advertisers!
Some jpegs. No js, no moving shit, just logos, some text, some call to action in a banner format. That's it.
Also:
> A random number generator determines which company's Banner Ad will go in a particular position*. I wrote the code myself and it is very simple and foolproof.
> I do not collect page traffic or link click statistics for advertisements. Your website server statistical analysis is a much better reporter of inbound links from RF Cafe than I or anyone else can provide.
Nice.
> Banner Plan: $400/month
I count 22 advertisers, so there's obviously lots of incentives for advertisers to work with this site. Good for them, and nice to see it can still be lucrative for what I believe to be a single person operation. Quality content still matters.
While I agree with the sentiment, the world of Internet advertising just doesn't run like that at this point. The current advertisers all look like they're in the RF equipment supplier, which is probably, all things considered, what we'd probably call a niche. I would totally prefer things to be that way, but having compared to major ad networks, in the eyes of advertisers, doing things this way mostly mean throwing away that sweet sweet analytics data and some control. There's just very little incentive for most businesses past a certain scale looking to advertise to do things this way.
Even though there are so many packed buttons and links it seems to like a vastly superior design compared to modern websites. I don't know if it's me being used to this or if we went wrong somewhere.
Funny, I entirely disagree. On one hand, the design itself is heartwarming because it's old internet. Also, once you navigate into the topics, things are neatly organized, and there I agree with you. But the content on the main page itself lacks a common thread, no idea where i'm supposed to read or what belongs together.
I'd say there is a pretty common thread for it, but man is it a mishmash of interests, which really makes it charming.
It's certainly not focused. Sure this site is about RF, but the owner decided they'd throw in basically all their interests into one website. I mean, it has crossword puzzles and a jokes page :D
This is the site to send someone to who wonders "What was the internet like before Web 2.0".
RF always had a reputation of being a black art. There was a brief time in the late 2000s where RFIC design was the top paying field for EE grads.
With the rise of Meta, Google, etc paying CS grads 500k etc, now it's quaint and hilarious, if you check r/chipdesign, the millenial RF practitioners still think you need a MS/PhD minimum to get a grad job.. Fellas, there's not a single Stanford EE grad that still wants to work in your field... and half the RFIC designers went took their MATLAB skills into "Data Science/ML".
Ham radio websites might be my favorite genre of website. Their design is always a throwback to the internet of my youth, and they almost always have tons of interesting technical content.
> throwback to the internet of my youth
It's interesting how simple advertising is as well.
> Please Support My Advertisers!
Some jpegs. No js, no moving shit, just logos, some text, some call to action in a banner format. That's it.
Also:
> A random number generator determines which company's Banner Ad will go in a particular position*. I wrote the code myself and it is very simple and foolproof.
> I do not collect page traffic or link click statistics for advertisements. Your website server statistical analysis is a much better reporter of inbound links from RF Cafe than I or anyone else can provide.
Nice.
> Banner Plan: $400/month
I count 22 advertisers, so there's obviously lots of incentives for advertisers to work with this site. Good for them, and nice to see it can still be lucrative for what I believe to be a single person operation. Quality content still matters.
While I agree with the sentiment, the world of Internet advertising just doesn't run like that at this point. The current advertisers all look like they're in the RF equipment supplier, which is probably, all things considered, what we'd probably call a niche. I would totally prefer things to be that way, but having compared to major ad networks, in the eyes of advertisers, doing things this way mostly mean throwing away that sweet sweet analytics data and some control. There's just very little incentive for most businesses past a certain scale looking to advertise to do things this way.
Love this design. Kind of reminds me of this Norwegian web shop: https://arngren.net/ hasn't changed much since the early 2000s or even late 90s
I love the information density on that page. Feels like very fresh compared to today's minimal pages.
Old school Japanese sites - same vibe.
Reminds me of the early 90's internet I used to browse. Filled with people obsessed with tech and zero politics. I miss that internet.
What is a 40 GHz , 20 W amplifier used for in amateur radio circles?
Reducing the effects of loss over long distance coax runs.
> Your country is not allowed to access this resource
https://archive.ph/ZAFHY
Even though there are so many packed buttons and links it seems to like a vastly superior design compared to modern websites. I don't know if it's me being used to this or if we went wrong somewhere.
Funny, I entirely disagree. On one hand, the design itself is heartwarming because it's old internet. Also, once you navigate into the topics, things are neatly organized, and there I agree with you. But the content on the main page itself lacks a common thread, no idea where i'm supposed to read or what belongs together.
I'd say there is a pretty common thread for it, but man is it a mishmash of interests, which really makes it charming.
It's certainly not focused. Sure this site is about RF, but the owner decided they'd throw in basically all their interests into one website. I mean, it has crossword puzzles and a jokes page :D
This is the site to send someone to who wonders "What was the internet like before Web 2.0".
RF always had a reputation of being a black art. There was a brief time in the late 2000s where RFIC design was the top paying field for EE grads.
With the rise of Meta, Google, etc paying CS grads 500k etc, now it's quaint and hilarious, if you check r/chipdesign, the millenial RF practitioners still think you need a MS/PhD minimum to get a grad job.. Fellas, there's not a single Stanford EE grad that still wants to work in your field... and half the RFIC designers went took their MATLAB skills into "Data Science/ML".
This is amazing