Hello,

The following message is automatically sent to every new poster or
cross-poster (as of June 19, 2002) to any of the rec.radio.amateur.*
newsgroups. It should be sent once, and only once, to each unique
address. This is a welcome message. The Internet amateur radio
community welcomes you to the newsgroups, including
rec.radio.amateur.*,
and welcomes your input, opinions, and constructive participation. To
help make you feel welcome, experienced participants like myself have
chosen to systematically inform you, as a new poster, about useful
information resources and user tips to enable you to get the most out
of
these newsgroups. I hope you will consider the message in that spirit.

* * *

1. The news.announce.newusers newsgroup, moderated by Jon Bell, et al,
contains a number of very informative articles providing an overview of
net-etiquette, suggested writing styles for electronic forums, and
other
various do's and don'ts concerning Internet culture. If the articles
have expired at your site, you may also access them from:

ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/news/

2. Original newsgroup voting and charter information for the
rec.radio.amateur.* hierarchy, as well as for rec.radio.info and
rec.radio.swap, may be accessed from:

ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announc...rec.radio.info
ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announc....amateur-reorg
ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announc...dio.amateur.dx
ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announc...ur.boatanchors

3. The Guide to the rec.radio Newsgroups, originally written by Jay
Maynard, K5ZC, is now maintained by Jeffrey Herman, KH6O. It provides
an excellent overview of all of the Usenet newsgroups devoted to
amateur
and CB radio. It may be accessed from:

ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.a...personal-intro

4. The rec.radio.swap FAQ: A Guide to Buying and Selling on Usenet,
also originally written by Jay Maynard, K5ZC, is now also maintained by
Jeffrey Herman, KH6O. It contains a number of good pointers for
reading
and posting articles concerning the buying and selling of radio and
radio-related equipment on the Usenet newsgroup rec.radio.swap (which,
with the sole exception of rec.radio.amateur.boatanchors for vintage
equipment, is the only appropriate newsgroup in the rec.radio.*
hierarchy for such articles). It may be accessed from:

ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.a...dio/swap-guide

Please direct any submissions feedback, or administrivia regarding the
above two resources to .

5. The national amateur radio society of the United States, the
American Radio Relay League, has a presence on the Internet. You may
access their comprehensive and informative home page at:

http://www.arrl.org/

(They also have information about amateur radio organizations in other
countries.)

6. Read the newsgroup first to see if your question has already been
answered. You may also view, and search for keywords in, older news
articles (going all the way back to 1981) at the Google (formerly
DejaNews) archive:

http://groups.google.com/

Many topics have been discussed before, often in great depth, but the
articles have expired at your local news server. Services like Google
allow Usenet a much longer "institutional memory," greatly benefiting
both new and experienced users.

7. If you do post to the newsgroup, give as many details as possible.
After you post, read the newsgroup for a week or two to see all replies
to your posting. A recommended practice is to ask for responses by
E-mail and offer to post a summary if others are interested in the
answer to your question. Note that it is (almost without exception)
inappropriate to post your article to all (or even a significant subset
of) rec.radio.amateur.* newsgroups. Please pick only the most relevant
newsgroups (2 or 3 at most), and post your article as a simultaneous
cross-post (check your newsreader documentation) so that only one
article is propagated, and the article is only shown once in a
newsreader.

8. Remember, Usenet newsgroups are based on the idea of mutual aid.
Usenet only works if we put as much into it as we get out of it.

73, Paul W. Schleck, K3FU