Popular Communications is a magazine

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

 with content relating to the radio hobby, including scanners

Scanner (radio)

A scanner is a radio receiver that can automatically tune, or scan, two or more discrete frequencies, stopping when it finds a signal on one of them and then continuing to scan other frequencies when the initial transmission ceases....

, shortwave radio, CB, amateur radio

Amateur radio

Amateur radio is the use of designated radio frequency spectrum for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, and emergency communication...

, AM and FM broadcast band listening, radio history, and vintage radio restoration. The magazine features articles covering a broad spectrum of radio topics, regular columns by recognized leaders within the hobby, product reviews, schedules of shortwave stations, and logs of radio communications, including pirate radio

Pirate radio

Pirate radio is illegal or unregulated radio transmission. The term is most commonly used to describe illegal broadcasting for entertainment or political purposes, but is also sometimes used for illegal two-way radio operation...

, AM, and military aviation transmissions.

In addition to these traditional aspects of the radio hobby, the magazine also highlights more modern facits such as software-defined radio

Software-defined radio

A software-defined radio system, or SDR, is a radio communication system where components that have been typically implemented in hardware are instead implemented by means of software on a personal computer or embedded computing devices...

, scanning software, live station streaming, podcasting, and emerging technologies.

The magazine is published by CQ Communications, publishers of CQ Amateur Radio

CQ Amateur Radio

CQ Amateur Radio is a magazine for amateur radio enthusiasts. The magazine has a worldwide readership base for its English language edition. A Spanish language edition is published in Spain with some translations of articles from the English language edition and some original European content...

, CQ VHF Magazine

CQ VHF Magazine

CQ VHF is a magazine that serves the ham radio operators whose operational and technical interests lie above 50 MHz.The magazine focuses on radio technology, products, and activities that exist on6 meters, 2 meters, 440 MHz and above...

, and WorldRadio

WorldRadio

WorldRadio was a monthly amateur radio enthusiast magazine published in the United States from July, 1971 to November, 2008. The magazine was published in English and drew its subscription base primarily from the United States of America and Canada, although it had subscribers around the world...

. It has been published since 1982 and succeeded the CB radio oriented magazine S9, published from 1962 to 1982.