acmnews@zeus.unomaha.edu (Paul W. Schleck KD3FU) (03/12/91)
Archive-name: rec/radio/ham-radio-info/1991-03-07 Original-posting-by: acmnews@zeus.unomaha.edu (Paul W. Schleck KD3FU) Original-subject: Project SAVE THE BANDWIDTH Reposted-by: emv@ox.com (Edward Vielmetti) Project SAVE THE BANDWIDTH emerged as a result of informal E-mail discussion among a few of the "veteran" readers of the rec.ham-radio (now rec.radio.amateur) newsgroups. Some of the ongoing small problems we noticed were: 1. Lots of repeated entry-level questions (what is ham? how do I become one? etc.). 2. Lots of repeated mid-level questions (where are the ftp sites? where are the telnettable callbook sites? etc.). 3. Lots of postings to the wrong newsgroups (misc in packet, packet in misc, swap in misc, etc.) The best solution to problems 1 and 2 would be a Most Frequently Asked Questions list. Most of the comp.* groups have such a list and it keeps down the number of "what is an autoexec.bat file?" postings. Diana Syriac, KC1SP, has graciously volunteered to put such a list together. She welcomes additions and corrections to the list, which should be sent to dls@genrad.com. Since he was the person who brainstormed the ham-radio newsgroup reorganization, Jay Maynard K5ZC (jmaynard@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu), has agreed to tackle #3. He will be periodically posting a regular rec.radio.* group overview describing each group and what should and should not be posted to each one. Another useful resource would be a supplemental ftp site for filing the above postings. There are a number of good ham-radio archives, including wsmr-simtel20.army.mil and wuarchive.wustl.edu. Our purpose is not to take the place of these archives, but merely to make available documents that are of enough long-term and widespread interest to provide a storage site for, but not important enough to justify trying to get it on the larger sites (e.g. the New Packeteers Guide by KA3RFE that I got almost 30 E-mail requests for). As an example, we can look at the comp.dcom.telecom newsgroup. In addition to archived newsgroup postings, the comp.dcom.telecom archives on lcs.mit.edu has quite a few informational documents such as telecommunications regulations, glossaries of terms, and such. Since rec.radio.amateur.misc and rec.radio.amateur.packet are already archived elsewhere, what would be desirable is a "supplemental" archive for these informational documents. Some of these documents include: 1. A list of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators (VEC's) 2. The most recent copies of KC1SP's, K5ZC's, and other's informational postings. 3. The KA3RFE New Packeteers Guide Devon Bowen KA2NRC (bowen@cs.buffalo.edu) has set aside some space on ftp.cs.buffalo.edu in subdirectory pub/ham-radio for just this purpose. Submissions for the archives should be E-mailed to him. Our final (and probably most ambitious) project is to compile a list of On-Line Elmers. These are individuals who regularly read the newsgroups, have some expertise in some area of the hobby, and are willing to field questions (either via E-mail or on the newsgroups) in that area of expertise. I will be the point-of-contact for the On-Line Elmer's project. Naturally, the more volunteers we have, the more evenly the work is spread. If after volunteering, you would like to withdraw, I would certainly remove your name from the list. I could also add some sort of notice saying that because of "other committments" or "career broadening" you are no longer available for full-time Elmering, if you wish. Naturally, we don't intend to be *THE* set of informational postings, just *A* set of informational postings. Feel free to either send information to us, or post it yourself. The advantage of sending it to us is that it gets incorporated into our FTP files and informational postings. Comments/criticisms are welcome. 73, Paul W. Schleck, KD3FU ACMNEWS@zeus.unomaha.edu uunet!unocss!zeus!acmnews 137.48.1.1 ps67@umail.umd.edu uunet!mimsy!umail!ps67 128.8.10.28