Model Rocketeer Magazine

NARTS now has in stock
MODEL ROCKETEER MAGAZINE CD-ROM
FEBRUARY 1972 thru DECEMBER 1979
All the back issues of the 70'
$30.00 plus shipping

Hey Everyone,

I had the opportunity to review this new CD from NARTS and what a wealth of information. In fact, it's 1595 pages of information. From Feb. 72' to Dec. 79' and it's every page. I can't imagine the amount of work that went into this effort. I nice feature is the bookmark feature. There's an icon on the left that is a book with a bookmark on it. When you click on it, it has a dropdown menu of each issue. Click on the date and it goes to the cover of that issue.

The best thing is that it is a cheap way to explore the history of the NAR. Now's your chance to own all the back issues of the magazine. I'm glad I had an opportunity to preview this CD and I know that NARTS is working on the next decade of magazines.

In the member survey, earlier this year; I suggested they digitize all of the back catalog (MR/AMSPAM/SR/Etc.). Considering the amount of work it must have taken, I suspect that effort was already underway. At the listed price it's a bargain - I'll certainly be ordering a copy.

Thank you NAR / NARTS !

I suggested this very thing two years ago based on the "20 years of FARM SHOW magazine on CD-ROM" put out by Farm Show magazine... www.farmshow.com

It's a terrific resource, even including a searchable index by topic, or entire issues scanned page for page that can be read on the computer like a regular hardcopy magazine. What's more, Farm Show only charges about $20-30 for the ENTIRE run of the magazine from day one issue one to the issue when the CD-ROM was burned. That's a fantastic deal!

I thought just such an offering would be a terrific resource for modelers and those interested in NAR and model rocket history in general. I suggested as much to HQ and got a letter back from the NAR President asking if I were volunteering to do it. I politely replied that I don't have the requisite computer skills necessary to do so, and received a rather curt reply to the effect, basically, that if I wasn't volunteering to do it, then I might as well shut up. :eyeroll:

Glad to see this has been done and released... now I have to save a few nickels so I can get a copy...

Later! OL JR

My daughter and I did all the scanning. It entailed manually photocopying each page of each issue so that the original magazines did not have to be cut apart.

I think we're up to nearly 3,500 pages that have been copied and scanned over a two year period entailing probably a few hundred hours of labor. I eventually bought a faster document scanner to speed the work up.

I created bookmarks for each issue so that navigation is very easy. I'd eventually like to have a searchable bookmark for every article but that would require a lot of work for what is a volunteer project.

There's a lot of good information in these old issues and Brad from NARTS is trying really hard to get it in a usable format at a decent price so that the members can enjoy it.

I received my copy today.

I've only looked at a small percentage of it but there's lot's of interesting material.

Recommended.

Pat_B said:

My daughter and I did all the scanning. It entailed manually photocopying each page of each issue so that the original magazines did not have to be cut apart.

I think we're up to nearly 3,500 pages that have been copied and scanned over a two year period entailing probably a few hundred hours of labor. I eventually bought a faster document scanner to speed the work up.

I created bookmarks for each issue so that navigation is very easy. I'd eventually like to have a searchable bookmark for every article but that would require a lot of work for what is a volunteer project.

There's a lot of good information in these old issues and Brad from NARTS is trying really hard to get it in a usable format at a decent price so that the members can enjoy it.

Click to expand...

ABSOLUTELY!!! THANK YOU!

I'm not opposed to volunteering myself, but like Clint Eastwood used to say, "a man's GOT to know his limitations". Mine include computers and anything related to them... LOL

Hope yall will do "American Spacemodeling" next...

Later and thank you for your efforts! OL JR

Mine came yesterday, finally got a chance to look at it...very cool--some very informative issues there, like Dec '73 w/ scale info on the Saturn V launcher...somebody was looking for that sometime back...

I had let my NAR membership lapse in Dec '74, so those later issues will be interesting reading.

Thanks to the scanners and compilers...this is a great reference!

I'm quite a ways through the American Spacemodeling mags. Still waiting for some more issues to scan. It's been a lot of work getting copies of these old magazines from different people around the country. However, the scanning is going much faster with a new scanner and there shouldn't be too much of a delay getting the rest of the issues done.

Pat_B said:

I'm quite a ways through the American Spacemodeling mags. Still waiting for some more issues to scan. It's been a lot of work getting copies of these old magazines from different people around the country. However, the scanning is going much faster with a new scanner and there shouldn't be too much of a delay getting the rest of the issues done.

Click to expand...

MOST EXCELLENT!!!

Later! OL JR

there is an index to back issues from 1973 to about 1999 on the NAR website at https://www.nar.org/pdf/magindex.pdf

rocketguy101 said:

there is an index to back issues from 1973 to about 1999 on the NAR website at https://www.nar.org/pdf/magindex.pdf

Click to expand...

Yeah, My Fiddle Faddle is listed on page 95. Too bad there were no photos. And they spelled my last name wrong...sigh

I just discovered my copy is missing the entire February 1974 issue, which had plans for the Nike-Tomahawk. The book mark for that issue is in the pdf, but clicking on it sends me to January 1974. I scrolled through the pages, and sure enough, it jumps from January to March. I have continued scrolling down, and Feb 74 is not there.

I have my old copy of that issue, but was going to point out this CD to somebody who was looking for Nike-Tomahawk info here on TRF. Just curious if anybody else who has this CD noticed the missing issue--I am assuming it would be same since the disc is a single pdf file.

Could NARTS rectify this problem by placing the scanned files on the website to sell? I doubt they would be able to replace all the discs that have been sold. Like I said I have a hardcopy but will not scan/post since NAR owns the rights, just hoping they could make this available again.

David-- I did all the scanning and there were indeed some mistakes. I believe we found all of the problems and Brad at NARTS can get you a new DVD. Just contact him and he'll take care of you.

Pat_B said:

David-- I did all the scanning and there were indeed some mistakes. I believe we found all of the problems and Brad at NARTS can get you a new DVD. Just contact him and he'll take care of you.

Click to expand...

Thanks! He contacted me already...are the discs now shipping from NARTS correct, or will it take awhile? I was going to post on the Nike-Tomahawk thread...https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?55331-The-Nike-Tomahawk&highlight=nike+tomahawk

Is this CD-ROM still available? I would like a copy of it if it is.
Thanks

hadman said:

Is this CD-ROM still available? I would like a copy of it if it is.
Thanks

Click to expand...

Still listed in the online store: https://blastzone.org/nar/narts/store.asp?groupid=12720058171961

Are the nineties being scanned for another CD ?

There are plans to have the 90s done too. I'm not sure of the timeline. I talk to Brad every so often but can't remember the actual schedule. One issue we have is that we always try to find magazine issues that can be cut apart to run through the scanner. That takes awhile to do. Otherwise, I have to manually copy every page of each issue and that is very time consuming- and expensive with paper and toner.

I don't remember the cutoff dates. But the newer issues of SR are turned into PDF files directly from the original graphic files that Todd Schweim has. So we're almost done filling in the 'middle' of those dates until be bump against those issues.