(Note:  The following is reprinted with the permission of the author.
Due to the recent reorganization, it is also on a temporarily-
accelerated posting schedule as follows:

July      weekly
August    bi-weekly
September back to monthly)

This message describes the rec.radio.amateur.*, rec.radio.cb, rec.radio.info,
and rec.radio.swap newsgroups. It is intended to serve as a guide for the new
reader on what to find where. Questions and comments may be directed to the
author, Jay Maynard, K5ZC, by Internet electronic mail at
jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu. This message was last changed on 30 June 1993 to
add the groups created during the latest reorganization vote and the
description of the cs.utexas.edu gateway.

History
=======

Way back when, before there was a Usenet, the Internet hosted a mailing list
for hams, called (appropriately enough) INFO-HAMS. Ham radio discussions
were held on the mailing list, and sent to the mailboxes of those who had
signed up for it. When the Usenet software was created, and net news as we
now know it was developed, a newsgroup was created for hams: net.ham-radio.
The mailing list and the newsgroup were gatewayed together, eventually.

As the net grew, and as packet radio came into vogue, packet discussion began
to dominate other topics in the group and on the list. This resulted in the
logical solution: a group was created to hold the packet discussion, and
another corresponding mailing list was created as well: net.ham-radio.packet
and PACKET-RADIO, respectively.

These two groups served for several years, and went through Usenet's Great
Renaming essentially unchanged, moving from net.ham-radio[.packet] to
rec.ham-radio[.packet]. Readership and volume grew with the rest of the
network.

The INFO-HAMS mailing list was originally run from a US Army computer at
White Sands Missile Range, SIMTEL20. There were few problems with this
arrangement, but one was that the system was not supposed to be used for
commercial purposes. Since one of hams' favorite pastimes is swapping
gear, it was natural for hams to post messages about equipment for sale
to INFO-HAMS/rec.ham-radio. This ran afoul of SIMTEL20's no-commercial-use
restriction, and after some argument, a group was created specifically
for messages like that: rec.ham-radio.swap. This group wasn't gatewayed to
a mailing list, thus avoiding problems.

While all this was happening, other folks wanted to discuss other aspects
of the world of radio than the personal communications services. Those
folks created the rec.radio.shortwave and rec.radio.noncomm newsgroups,
and established the precedent of the rec.radio.* hierarchy, which in turn
reflected Usenet's overall trend toward a hierarchical name structure.

The debate between proponents of a no-code ham radio license and its opponents
grew fierce and voluminous in late 1989 and 1990. Eventually, both sides grew
weary of the debate, and those who had not been involved even more so. A
proposal for a newsgroup dedicated to licensing issues failed. A later
proposal was made for a group that would cover the many recurring legal issues
discussions. During discussion of the latter proposal, it became clear that it
would be desirable to fit the ham radio groups under the rec.radio.*
hierarchy. A full-blown reorganization was passed by Usenet voters in January
1991, leading to the overall structure we now use. 

After the reorganization, more and more regular information postings began to
appear, and were spread out across the various groups in rec.radio.*. Taking
the successful example of the news.answers group, where informational postings
from across the net are sent, the group rec.radio.info was created in
December, 1992, with Mark Salyzyn, VE6MGS, initially serving as moderator.

In January, 1993, many users started complaining about the volume in
rec.radio.amateur.misc. This led to a discussion about a second
reorganization, which sparked the creation of a mailing list by Ian Kluft,
KD6EUI. This list, which was eventually joined by many of the most prolific
posters to the ham radio groups, came up with a proposal to add 11 groups to
the rec.radio.amateur hierarchy in April 1993. The subsequent vote, held in
May and early June, approved the creation of five groups:
rec.radio.amateur.digital.misc (to replace .packet), .equipment, .homebrew,
.antenna, and .space.

The Current Groups
==================

I can hear you asking, "OK, so this is all neat history, but what does it
have to do with me now?" The answer is that the history of each group has
a direct bearing on what the group is used for, and what's considered
appropriate where.

The easy one is rec.radio.amateur.misc. It is what rec.ham-radio was renamed
to during the reorganization. Any message that's not more appropriate in one
of the other groups belongs here, from contesting to DX to ragchewing on VHF
to information on becoming a ham.

The group rec.radio.amateur.digital.misc is for discussions related to
(surprise!) digital amateur radio. This doesn't have to be the common
two-meter AX.25 variety of packet radio, either; some of the most
knowledgeable folks in radio digital communications can be found here, and
anything in the general area is welcome. The name was changed to emphasize
this, and to encourage discussion not only of other text-based digital modes,
such as AMTOR, RTTY, and Clover, but things like digital voice and video as
well. The former group, rec.radio.amateur.packet, has not been removed as of
this writing, but it is obsolete, and you should use .digital.misc instead.
The group has the .misc as part of the name to allow further specialization if
the users wish it, such as .digital.tcp-ip. 

The swap group is now rec.radio.swap. This recognizes a fact that became
evident shortly after the original group was formed: Hams don't just swap ham
radio gear, and other folks besides hams swap ham equipment. If you have radio
equipment, or test gear, or computer stuff that hams would be interested in,
here's the place. Equipment wanted postings belong here too. Discussions about
the equipment generally don't; if you wish to discuss a particular posting
with the buyer, email is a much better way to do it, and the other groups,
especially .equipment and .homebrew, are the place for public discussions.
There is now a regular posting with information on how to go about buying and
selling items in rec.radio.swap; please refer to it before you post there. 

The first reorganization added two groups to the list, one of which is
rec.radio.amateur.policy. This group was created as a place for all the
discussions that seem to drag on interminably about the many rules,
regulations, legalities, and policies that surround amateur radio, both
existing and proposed. The neverending no-code debate goes here, as does
the New Jersey scanner law, the legality of ordering a pizza on the
autopatch, what a bunch of rotten no-goodniks the local frequency
coordinating body is, and so on.

The other added group is rec.radio.cb. This is the place for all discussion
about the Citizens' Band radio service. Such discussions have been very
inflammatory in rec.ham-radio in the past; please do not cross-post to both
rec.radio.cb and rec.radio.amateur.* unless the topic is genuinely of interest
to both hams and CBers - and very few topics are.

The rec.radio.info group is just what its name implies: it's the place where
informational messages from across rec.radio.* may be found, regardless of
where else they're posted. As of this writing, information posted to the group
includes Cary Oler's daily solar progagation bulletins, ARRL bulletins, the
Frequently Asked Questions files for the various groups, and radio
modification instructions. This group is moderated, so you cannot post to it
directly; if you try, even if your message is crossposted to one of the other
groups, your message will be mailed to the moderator, who is currently Mark
Salyzyn, VE6MGS. The email address for submissions to the group is
rec-radio-info@ve6mgs.ampr.ab.ca. Inquires and other administrivia should be
directed to rec-radio-request@ve6mgs.ampr.ab.ca. For more information about
rec.radio.info, consult the introduction and posting guidelines that are
regularly posted to that newsgroup.

The groups rec.radio.amateur.antenna, .equipment, .homebrew, and .space are
for more specialized areas of ham radio: discussions about antennas,
commercially-made equipment, homebrewing, and amateur radio space operations.
The .equipment group is not the place for buying or selling equipment; that's
what rec.radio.swap is for. Similarly, the .space group is specifically about
amateur radio in space, such as the OSCAR program and SAREX, the Shuttle
Amateur Radio EXperiment; other groups cover other aspects of satellites and
space. Homebrewing isn't about making your own alcoholic beverages at home
(that's rec.crafts.brewing), but rather construction of radio and electronic
equipment by the amateur experimenter. 

The rec.radio.amateur.misc, .packet, and .policy groups, and the
rec.radio.info group, are available by Internet electronic mail in digest
format; send a mail message containing "help" on a line by itself to
listserv@ucsd.edu for instructions on how to use the mail server. The
rec.radio.swap group is not available for reading by electronic mail. At this
writing, the most recently added groups are also not available for reading by
electronic mail, although that may change.

All of the groups can be posted to by electronic mail, though, by using a
gateway at the University of Texas at Austin. To post a message this way,
change the name of the group you wish to post to by replacing all of the '.'s
with '-'s - for example, rec.radio.swap becomes rec-radio-swap - and send to
that name@cs.utexas.edu (rec-radio-swap@cs.utexas.edu, for example). You may
crosspost by including multiple addresses as Cc: entries (but see below). This
gateway's continued availability is at the pleasure of the admins at
UT-Austin, and is subject to going away at any time - and especially if
forgeries and other net.abuses become a problem. You have been warned. 

A Few Words on Crossposting
===========================

Please do not crosspost messages to two or more groups unless there is genuine
interest in both groups in the topic being discussed, and when you do, please
include a header line of the form "Followup-To: group.name" in your article's
headers (before the first blank line). This will cause followups to your
article to go to the group listed in the Followup-To: line. If you wish
to have replies to go to you by email, rather than be posted, use the word
"poster" instead of the name of a group. Such a line appears in the headers
of this article.

One of the few examples of productive cross-posting is with the rec.radio.info
newsgroup. To provide a filtered presentation of information articles, while
still maintaining visibility in their home newsgroups, the moderator strongly
encourages cross-posting. All information articles should be submitted to the
rec.radio.info moderator so that he may simultaneously cross-post your
information to the appropriate newsgroups. Most newsreaders will only present
the article once, and network bandwidth is conserved since only one article is
propagated. If you make regular informational postings, and have made
arrangements with the moderator to post directly to the group, please
cross-post as appropriate.