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The June 1949 issue of Radio-Electronics with Radio-Craft tag line.

Radio-Electronics magazine was published under various titles from 1929 to 2002. Hugo Gernsback started it as Radio-Craft in 1929. The title was changed to Radio-Electronics in 1948 and in 1992 the name was changed to Electronics Now and after 1999 it was merged with Popular Electronics to become Poptronics. Gernsback Publications went out of business in December 2002.

Hugo Gernsback

In 1904 Hugo Gernsback established Electro Importing Company to sell radio components and electrical supplies by mail order. The catalogs had detailed instructions on projects like a wireless telegraph outfit and were the predecessor of his first magazine, Modern Electrics (April 1908). In May 1913 he started another magazine, The Electrical Experimenter. Gernsback was an enthusiastic supporter of amateur radio. Gernsback stated a magazine devoted to radio, Radio Amateur News (July 1919.) The title was shortened to Radio News in July 1920.^[1]

Radio News was a very successful magazine that enabled Hugo Gernsback and his brother Sidney to build a publishing empire. Amazing Stories was introduced in April 1926 and was the first magazine devoted to science fiction. In 1925 they launched the radio station WRNY. This was the first radio station to broadcast experimental television starting in 1928.

In February 1929 Gernsback was forced into bankruptcy. See Experimenter Publishing bankruptcy. Everything was sold to pay off the creditors.^[2] At the last court proceeding in April 1929, Hugo Gernsback announced a new publishing company. "Mr. Gernsback said after the hearing that his new magazines would be Radio Craft, Science Wonder Stories and Air Wonder Stories and that the first issues would be out in June."^[3]

Radio Electronics

Radio-Electronics was aimed at electronics professionals such as radio and TV repairmen. The audience was mainly males, with the tagline on the cover in the 1970s reading "For Men with Ideas in Electronics".

Around 1971, many authors who used to contribute to Popular Electronics started writing for Radio-Electronics. There was some competition in digital logic projects between Radio-Electronics and Popular Electronics. In September 1973, Radio-Electronics published Don Lancaster's "TV Typewriter" and in July 1974 it published Jon Titus's "Mark-8 Personal Minicomputer". However, Popular Electronics published the most famous project in January 1975 with the MITS Altair 8800 computer.

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