QRZ! Ham Radio 4/QRZ Ham Radio Callsign Database - Volume 4.iso/digests/policy/940228.txt

Internet Message Format | 1994-11-13 | 16.7 KB

Date: Tue, 31 May 94 04:30:09 PDT
From: Ham-Policy Mailing List and Newsgroup <[e-mail]>
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Reply-To: [e-mail]
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Subject: Ham-Policy Digest V94 #228
To: Ham-Policy


Ham-Policy Digest           Tue, 31 May 94       Volume 94 : Issue  228

Today's Topics:
                        2m QSO's and Callsigns
                Merge the CW test with the Theory Test
                      Welcome to rec.radio.info!

Send Replies or notes for publication to: <[e-mail]>
Send subscription requests to: <[e-mail]>
Problems you can't solve otherwise to [e-mail].

Archives of past issues of the Ham-Policy Digest are available
(by FTP only) from UCSD.Edu in directory "mailarchives/ham-policy".

We trust that readers are intelligent enough to realize that all text
herein consists of personal comments and does not represent the official
policies or positions of any party.  Your mileage may vary.  So there.
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Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 14:54:38 GMT
From: ihnp4.ucsd.edu!library.ucla.edu!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!gumby!wupost!csus.edu!netcom.com![e-mail]
Subject: 2m QSO's and Callsigns
To: [e-mail]

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Arthur T. Staniec) writes:

>You don't need to repeat the other stations call, but it is a sign
>of courtesy that you try to remember who you are talking to.  Kind of
>like using the person's name during the conversation.  People like to
>hear their name used and hams like to hear that other people remember
>their callsign.

>Don't you think that's a neat idea, Mike?

><see what I mean?>

I do see what you mean, and anticipate that it won't be a problem for me once
I've actually started to participate.  Your reply made me comtemplate how
anxious I am to get involved, and how neat it will be to have my very
own callsign that others will know and remember!  I'm sure I'll enjoy
knowing people remember my call, and thus I'll want to to the same.

Thanks Mack!

Mike

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Michael A. Hotz       J.M. Allen Creations       [e-mail]  |
|  Of course my opinions represent those of my company, I own it!  ;-)  |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 15:43:25 GMT
From: ihnp4.ucsd.edu!usc!math.ohio-state.edu!caen!crl.dec.com!crl.dec.com!nntpd.lkg.dec.com!nntpd2.cxo.dec.com!iamu.chi.dec.com![e-mail]
Subject: Merge the CW test with the Theory Test
To: [e-mail]

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Michael P. Deignan) writes:
|>[e-mail] (Todd Little) writes:
|>
|>> Do you have any solid facts that would prove your hypothesis that the
|>> sampled population is _not_ representative of the entire population?
|>
|>Oh goodie. Now I have to disprove "facts" which haven't been proven as
|>"facts" at all.
|>
|>Do you have any evidence to show that the statistical techniques used
|>by Newsline to reach their published conclusion are, in fact, correct,
|>and address the questions which I have presented questioning those
|>methods?

I'm not trying to make any judgement on Newsline as you are.  You claim bias
and spout about statistics as the means to make a claim, yet provide no
statistical evidence yourself to substantiate your claim.  And then you
post your indignance at being held to the same standards you tried to
establish?

|>> Or
|>> is your conclusion simply conjecture based upon the outcome and that it
|>> isn't in agreement with your views?  Come on, how can someone who claims
|>> to have taught a statistics course turn around and make a statement like:
|>> "know it is a biased poll."?
|>
|>There is a significant portion of the ham population which is not
|>involved in packet radio or online services. This "survey" did not
|>attempt to take into account the opinions of all amateurs, with equal
|>likelihood of being chosen to give their opinion. The "survey" was not
|>given on a random sample of the ham population. Hence, it is an
|>invalid survey, for the purposes of claiming what the amateur community
|>as a whole wants.

A survey doesn't need to take into account the opinions of every possible
sub population to be valid.  The survey will only be biased if the portion of
the population excluded from the survey is a) sufficiently large, and more
importantly, b) has a different view on the matter being surveyed.  Without
knowing those two pieces of information, you can't make a claim of bias.

|>And sorry, that's not conjecture, those are facts.

Nope, sorry, it's conjecture unless you have the above two pieces of
information.

|>> Do you have any statistically significant evidence that supports your claim?
|>
|>I'm not the one making the claim. I'm questioning the statistical methods
|>used to arrive at the broad generalizations made.

Excuse me, but what is the statement "One does not need to have 'intimate
knowledge of the poll' to know that it is a biased poll."?  Sounds to me like
a claim of bias without substantiating evidence.

|>Why? Are you going to start forcing people to like packet radio or
|>online services?

How is that different than you wanting to force people to like Morse code?
But no, unlike you, I'm not interested in forcing people to like/learn
one mode over another mode.

|>I thought you were against forcing people to like
|>cw? Why would you want to inflict something similar? Or, is it a case
|>of "what's good for the goose..."?

Not at all.  It's perfectly fine with me if no one moves to packet or online
services.  That will help cut down on the overcrowding and degraded response
times (said with tongue-in-cheek).  It's more a question of what is the
amateur radio service all about.  Please re-read the basis and purpose of
the amateur radio service and then draw your own conclusions.

73,
Todd
N9MWB

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Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 21:00:05 MDT
From: tribune.usask.ca!quartz.ucs.ualberta.ca!alberta!ve6mgs![e-mail]
Subject: Welcome to rec.radio.info!
To: [e-mail]

Archive-name: radio/rec-radio-info/welcome
Last-modified: $Date: 1994/01/02 22:00 $
Version: $Revision: 1.06 $

*** Welcome to rec.radio.info! ***

Welcome to rec.radio.info, a group that aims to provide a noise-free source
of information and news for the entire rec.radio hierarchy.

Two introductory articles about rec.radio.info are posted to the group and
to news.answers every two weeks. You are now reading the first article, which
explains what rec.radio.info is, and answers some Frequently Asked Questions.
The second article is titled "Submission Guidelines", and you only need to
read it if you want to submit an article to rec.radio.info.

You can skip to the next section of this article by searching for the next
" -- " string. The sections available are:
 - What is the purpose of rec.radio.info?
 - Why are messages almost always cross posted to rec.radio.info?
 - What is a 'follow-up', and what does 'moderated' mean?
 - OK, so now I know what 'moderated' means. Tell me more.
 - What type of material is considered inappropriate?
 - I do not have access to news, how can I get the information posted to
   rec.radio.info?
 - Will the material appearing in rec.radio.info be archived somewhere?
 - I have a regular posting with timely information, is there a way to
   speed up it's delivery, or automate for more convenience?

 -- What is the purpose of rec.radio.info?

The purpose or charter of rec.radio.info is to provide the Usenet community with
a resource for information, news, and facts about any and all things radio.

All the other rec.radio groups are intended for discussions and general chit
chat about radio.  Rec.radio.info will contain informational, factual articles
only. Follow-ups are redirected to an appropriate other group, and further
discussion (if any) will not take place in rec.radio.info.

In order to ensure that rec.radio.info contains only appropriate articles, it
was decided to create the group as a moderated newsgroup.

 -- Why are messages almost always cross posted to rec.radio.info?

It provides a "tag" for each article to be assembled into a filtered
presentation in rec.radio.info (even with cross-posting, only one message, with
a unique Message-ID, is propogated across the net).  This tag also facilitates
a pre-existing method of dropping or cancelling the articles locally within the
discussion groups if you don't want to see them.  This accommodates individuals
who want to separate the bulletins from the discussions, discussions from the
bulletins, as well as those who are adamant about not reading another
newsgroup and wanted to see everything all in one basket.

With the total size of Usenet (in number of newsgroups and total traffic)
doubling every year or so, this is no insignificant contribution to reducing
information noise and chaos.  Making the discussion groups a catch-all, and
making extra newsgroups filters on that catch-all, is also the most realistic
way to implement such a scheme (It's not intuitively obvious what the charter,
contents, and general appropriate topics for each and every newsgroup are.
Seeing FAQ's and charter/intro postings in the home newsgroup is beneficial
for new readers).

By cross-posting one only is adding a few tens of bytes to each bulletin (to
specify the extra group on the Newsgroups line), but are adding the capability
for very powerful filtering features available on most news servers,
listservers and readers.  Your local news guru could probably explain these
features in more detail.

In rn, for example, according to Leanne Phillips in her rn kill-file FAQ, add
a line of the form:
    /Newsgroups:.*[ ,]rec\.radio\.info/h:j
either in ~/News/KILL (if you don't want to see rec.radio.info articles
anywhere) or ~/News/rec/radio/amateur/misc/KILL (if you don't want to see them
just in rec.radio.amateur.misc).  The latter method means your kill file will
only be consulted during rec.radio.amateur.misc (and hence runs more
efficiently), and will probably work for most people.

In nn, according to Bill Wohler in his nn FAQ, add a line of the form:
    rec.radio.info:!s/:^
in ~/.nn/kill (if you don't want to see rec.radio.info articles anywhere), or
put the following lines:
    sequence
    rec.radio.info
    rec.radio.
at the end of ~/.nn/init in order to see all the rec.radio.info bulletins first,
then read the remaining rec.radio.* without the bulletins.

 -- What is a 'follow-up', and what does 'moderated' mean?

If you are new to Usenet and are not familiar with the terminology, you might
want to read the general introductory articles found in the newsgroup
news.announce.newusers. Doing so will make your life on the net much easier,
and will probably save you from making silly beginner's mistakes.

If you think that at this moment you are reading an echo, a conference, or
a bulletin board, I'd also strongly suggest a trip over to
news.announce.newusers.

For the rest of this article, I will assume you have a basic knowledge of
Usenet terminology and mechanics.

A moderated group means that any article that needs to be posted to the group
has to be accepted by the moderator of the group. Since we need to ensure that
followups to an article (discussion) do not show up in the rec.radio.info
newsgroup, the `Followup-To:' header line contains a newsgroup that is
appropriate for disussions about the specific article.

 -- OK, so now I know what 'moderated' means. Tell me more.

Rec.radio.info is a moderated newsgroup, which means that all articles
submitted to the group will have to be approved by the moderator first.

The current moderator of the group is Mark Salyzyn.  Submissions to
rec.radio.info can be posted, or e-mailed to:

        [e-mail]

Comments, criticisms, suggestions or questions about the group can be e-mailed
to:
        [e-mail]

But before you do so, please be sure to check out the "Submission Guidelines"
article.

The influence of the moderator should be minimal and of an administrative
nature, consisting chiefly of weeding out obviously inappropriate articles,
while making sure correct headers etc. are used for the appropriate ones.

 -- What type of material is considered inappropriate?

There are three broad categories of articles which will be rejected by the
moderator:

1) Requests for information: rec.radio.info is strictly a one-way street.  I
   receive information in my mailbox; I then post it to rec.radio.info.
   Requests for specific information belong in the normal discussion newsgroups.
   If your request gets answered, you might consider passing the answer on to
   rec.radio.info, though. Especially if you can edit it into a informational,
   rather than a discussion, format.

2) Obvious discussion articles, or articles that appear unsubstantiated.

3) Commercial stuff: a relatively unbiased test of a radio product would be
   accepted, but any hint of for-profit might be reason for rejection. For three
   reasons: This is not the purpose of the list, for-profit is a controversial
   topic, and this list may be passed onto Amateur Packet Radio (where
   for-profit is prohibited except under certain provisos).

   rec.radio.swap (or possibly comp.newprod) may be more deserving of the
   posting in any matter.

   Similarly, copyrighted material generally cannot be used.  If it's TRULY
   worthwhile to the net, I would recommend obtaining permission from the
   copyright holder.  Please note the source, and if permission was given.  I
   reserve the right to make the final decision concerning appropriateness in
   all situations.  In most cases, a brief summary of, or pointer to, the
   copyrighted information may be all I can allow.

 -- I do not have access to news, how can I get the information posted to
    rec.radio.info?

[e-mail] (Brian Kantor) has kindly supplied a mail list server for
rec.radio.info. Non of the articles will be digested, due to their size, so
you will receive individual mailings for every article posted to the group.

Mail sent to [e-mail] will be forwarded to the moderator and
thus is an alias to [e-mail]

To subscribe and unsubscribe via the listserver; the format for that is

    sub address radio-info
    unsub address radio-info

where 'address' is your full mailing address. Send this request to

    [e-mail]

Note that the server will automatically delete any address that bounces mail.
If you leave the address portion blank, it will try to deduce your address
from the mail headers. This may not work if you are on bitnet, milnet or
some other non-Unix host, so it is recommended to put your return address
in any case. For example:

    sub [e-mail] radio-info
or
    sub [e-mail] radio-info

or something like that.

 -- Will the material appearing in rec.radio.info be archived somewhere?

< Dated information here >

Yes. Still firming up details at the moment but here is a preliminary list:
    - unbc.edu as maintained by Lyndon Nerenberg <[e-mail]>
    - nic.funet.fi maintained by Risto Kotalampi <[e-mail]>
        saved to /pub/dx/text/rec.radio.info currently stored as
        numbered files.

Effectively this means that anything you post to rec.radio.info will be
permanently stored, so your work will not be lost.

 -- I have a regular posting with timely information, is there a way to
    speed up it's delivery, or automate for more convenience?

Yes, there is! It may take a bit of chatter with the moderator, but we are
willing to take responsible people and provide them the means of posting the
articles directly from their site. We will try everything we can as we fully
realize that DX (distant signal) and astronomical data can be somewhat
transitory. We are also willing to allow regular posters of information the
same courtesy, even if the information is not as time critical.

We refer to this as self-moderation, which is partly based on the model for
news.answer. This requires co-operation and good will to be beneficial to
the community in the rec.radio hierarchy.

I suggest reading the posting guidelines for more information. I am open to
suggestions.

I thank the following individuals for their input into this article:
    rec.music.info moderator Leo Breebaart [e-mail]
    rec.radio.broadcasting moderator Bill Pfeiffer [e-mail]
    Paul W. Schleck, KD3FU [e-mail]
    Ian Kluft, KD6EUI [e-mail]

--
Mark Salyzyn -- Moderator rec.radio.info
Submissions to: [e-mail]
Administrivia to: [e-mail]
* Requests for information do *not* belong in rec.radio.info *

------------------------------

End of Ham-Policy Digest V94 #228
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