Patron Hall of Fame
The following is a partial list of wonderful readers who are helping me get to my goal of 1,000 posts—it's a race between me and the coming ice age, a race I plan on winning—by pledging their support at Patreon. The Tube CAD Journal has 48 patrons. I sincerely thank them all, but I wish to particularly thank the following patrons for going far beyond my expectations. Great job, great guys.

Concordio Anacleto
Paul Reid
Andrew Rintoul
Jason Stoddard

Strengthening the Tube CAD Journal
When I first started selling PCBs (and later tube-audio kits), I assumed that the following Venn diagram would prove true:

Makes sense, doesn't it? I thought only those who read the Tube CAD Journal would want to buy PCBs. But the reality is much closer to this diagram:

Most of those who buy the PCBs used Google to find them. Many do not even read English. One clue that I ignored for the longest time was that I kept getting e-mails from PCB purchasers who asked if the board could be used in a particular way. What struck me odd about the question was that I had spent half of my last post on just how this could be done. Had he not read the post? No, he hadn't.

My efforts also differ from most other web realities, as most websites begrudgingly post content to promote sales of stuff; I begrudgingly sell stuff so that I can lovingly produce and post content. Over the years, I have received generous requests asking how the devoted reader could monetarily contribute to my postings. My usual answer has been to ask the reader to buy either a software download or a PCB. But not everyone needs these items or can use them. (One reader, however, has repeatedly bought the same software download each year. I wrote to him and he explained that this was his way of contributing to the Tube CAD Journal.) Some readers have just—unasked—sent in checks, one of which was for an embarrassingly large amount. Embarrassing for me, as I wish I could afford to make a similar contribution to my favorite websites; I do contribute to at least three websites, but nothing so generous.

"Most websites begrudgingly post content to promote sales of stuff; I begrudgingly sell stuff so that I can lovingly produce and post content."

Well, I have decided to listen to my ardent readers and friends and set up a Patreon account. If you wish to assist, bolster, and strengthen my efforts here and you are so inclined, please do check out my Patreon link. Thanks.

Tube CAD Journal History
The Tube CAD Journal Was born back in 1999. I had been writing the Tube Circuit of the Month articles for my GlassWare website and the response was just tremendous. This surprised me, as schematics were not rare on the Web, but enthusiasm-dripping e-mails I received told me that something extra was going on. I asked and the answer I got was that I just didn’t show how a circuit was laid out; I explained why it was designed that way. I realized that something more than one short article a month was needed. Thus the Tube CAD Journal was created. It, however, did not become what I had intended, as I wrote back in 2002 in an answer to a TCJer’s letter:

The original intent of this journal was to mimic the Mathcad Journal, a magazine put out by the MathSoft people to assist users of their Math CAD program by providing math-related articles that illustrated how their software could be used. For example, users of Math CAD who explain how they found the program useful write many of the articles. Well that was the intent, but the Tube CAD Journal went off in another direction altogether. Part of the reason was that many of the tube fanciers needed, as you pointed out, to be technically brought up to speed. Another part was my hope of expanding the tube-audio horizon, which I felt was collapsing into a few simple-minded topologies and practices.

Trying to put out a one-man-operation webzine, with an occasional helping hand from John Atwood, was thrilling, but exhausting. From webzine to just single articles to blog entries was the path I had to follow to save my sanity. Yes, I know that blog is not a proper blog, being too infrequent and being too long. But this format is a comfortable one and it is here to stay.

                                 John Broskie