Fractenna wrote:
As a 12 year member of AOL, I note that the world's largest ISP has
made a
decision to drop newsgroups from it's service.

A sterling example of why "the biggest" is immediatly suspect. I got
myself online before there was an AOL, back when ISPs were not in the
advertising biz and when all they provided was getting you "plugged in"
and the rest was on you. It was upon us to pick and choose our e-mail,
browser and newsreader clients, etc. The downsides of course were the
limits on access hours/day, reliability was lousy and as often as not
dialing the POP sites were expensive long-distance phone calls. But it
worked. Clean, simple and very effective. Then along came goofy AOL
with it's bottom line objective of opening up the Internet for the
incredibly dumbed-down and clueless masses so that they could control
and micromanage their online lives . . . I've used AOL as a "guest op"
here and there. I can't even start to imagine how or why you people put
up with their garbage.

One of my brothers found a use for AOL though. He collected a 15 inch
high stack of AOL CDs and made an interesting lamp out of 'em.

The decline of newsgroups has generally followed the tendency for
this type
forum to deviate dramatically from the original intent. But in the
case of this
NG, I too am of the opinion that it really has outlived it's intended
function
and time scale. It's become a rather limited BBS of sorts, with a
dramatic
amount of content that's either drug or sex related, or alludes to
illegal
activity.

No thanks.

There are a number of other forums around--hence the decline--and
although
antennas are a minor spark of interest, there clearly isn't the kind
of
activity you saw in the late 1990's, for example.

Gloom & doom from The Chipster. As long as Roy, Reg, Cecil and the rest
of the senior antenna gurus are still popping up here so will I.

Oh well. The net antiquates many things, even parts of itself.

I'll check in once in a while to see who is still alive:-) Best to
all, and
drop me a line if you'd like.

Go shovel out your driveway again and have a nice day.
73,
Chip N1IR

w3rv