I finished my look-through (look, don't read) and this issue is probably the most exciting collection of articles I have seen in any magazine.  Even the ads are fresher and sharper and inviting for further study.  The article on the Western Pacific is drawing me back.  Over all a great product.   It displays a lot of dedicated energy and creative thinking.

Congratulations and thank you MRH editor and staff.

Art

CONGRADULATIONS on starting the 3rd year!!!!!  Another quality issue!!!  I will say that the embedded video and 3D spin are probably the coolest features for me and looking forward to the mentioned more video coming.  Every article whether pertinent to me or not is read.  Congratulations to Kevin on having the WM being top dog in the last issue.

I don't want sound ungrateful as I am truly not, but I did notice the Bonus downloads were missing from this issue. I know going monthly  somethings have to go and there is work involved in everything in each issue but I I like these.  I hope they were not left on the cutting room floor due to lack of reader interest. Please consider this as positive feedback for the bonus downloads.

I also like the new video format as in Steve C's layout video.

Again congratulations for all of the milestones you continue to reach

Steve

I don't want sound ungrateful as I am truly not, but I did notice the Bonus downloads were missing from this issue. I know going monthly  somethings have to go and there is work involved in everything in each issue but I I like these.  I hope they were not left on the cutting room floor due to lack of reader interest. Please consider this as positive feedback for the bonus downloads.

No bonus downloads, Steve? I assume you've checked out the table of contents and page 17 ...

Totally missed them altogether.  Must have content overload.

Thanks

Steve

I didn't post it in the "corrections" thread because I figured you had enough on your plate just getting the bugs out of the issue.  As I read through the article on Stephen Cavanaugh's Western Pacific layout, I noticed in the scenery section of the q&a that he mentioned using Bragdon Enterprises rock molds including a link in parenthesis to the Bragdon web site.  I clicked on it and it took me right ot Bragdon's site.  Does a company that doesn't advertise with MRH get any sort of notice that their site was accessed through MRH?  It seems to me that if a web page picked up some extra traffic that was flagged as coming from MRH that might encourage them to become  a sponser.

Russ:

We feel it would be rather mercenary of us to only do links to paid advertisers, since the real heart of why we do this is to provide a great service to our readers, and we have advertisers in order to pay for our time providing this service.

So we will put links in pro bono for the benefit of our readers and hope the web sites notice. We have picked up advertisers that way, so we can always hope.

As we grow in reach across the web, I expect the jump in traffic these sites receive will get their attention - but there's nothing like just telling the hobby vendor you came to their site via MRH. That's the most powerful indicator of all - personal word of mouth.

That's why as of this new year, we will be regularly reminding our readers to mention MRH when speaking to hobby firms. We have also lost advertisers because they said no one ever mentioned MRH to them when placing orders. I just KNOW some of those orders came from MRH, but without them being more web savvy, it would be hard to prove. Unfortunately, more than a few model railroad vendors are not web savvy enough to put incoming link tracking on their site.

I think part of the problem is that if I order something on line from a vendor, their order blanks don't have anyplace to put any sort of comment on them.  I can send them an email advising them that I ordered something from them because I heard about them in MRH, but I don't know if they will even pay any attention or are savvy enough to figure out which order I woulkd be talking about!

"Free for the first 20 days after issue release(After January 17, 2011 these extras will no longer be available)"

Considering that the issue wasn't released until January 3rd, wouldn't "20 days after issue release" be January 23rd?

Bob Hayes

Hey Art -

I just downloaded the January issue and started the look-through but was stopped on page 3 by the BLMA ad..  They show a picture of a prototype truss bridge with the caption "see for yourself" and the center of the bridge at the juncture of two spans is floating in air with no support.   Their brass model of the span looks great but the picture raises questions.

I had to look at this ad several times myself. It's an optical illusion. The bushes below the joint in the two spans look like they are some distance behind the bridge, but they are actually in front of the bridge, hiding the support pier.

Wierd effect.

Thanks for the explanation - I see it now.

Joe, I've only had a chance to quickly preview the articles and ads, but I must say that the first monthly issue if outstanding. Congratulations to you and the MRH staff.

Roy