For the previous (SHORT) update, see:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...newsce ne.com

In September of 1996, I started mailing an introductory message to all
new posters to rec.radio.amateur.misc. This is accomplished via a
special Perl script originally written by comp.infosystems.www.* FAQ
maintainer Tom Boutell, who uses it on
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, to send each poster such a message
once, and only once, to a given E-mail address. It runs from a Unix
cron job on my host every morning at 2 AM and queries my local news
server via NNTP for the headers of any new articles posted to this
newsgroup.

The project was expanded on June 19, 2002 to cover all
rec.radio.amateur.* newsgroups, but with the same previous-poster
database (as I stated my intention to do in previous updates). This
means that if you have already received the message to a given E-mail
address, you won't receive it again to that same E-mail address. The
average number of recipients per day is currently about 12. Feedback
statistics remain about the same for the additional 2,500 recipients
(see previous updates via the link above for more details). Here are
the milestones in terms of number of recipients, and the date each
milestone was attained:

Recipients: Date: Average Recipients/Month (approx.):
0 September 21, 1996 N/A
5,000 July 5, 1997 625
7,500 December 7, 1997 500
10,000 June 2, 1998 420
12,500 December 20, 1998 420
15,000 September 29, 1999 280
17,500 May 30, 2000 310
20,000 April 7, 2001 250
22,500 April 3, 2002 220
25,000 August 8, 2002 625
27,500 December 1, 2002 670
30,000 April 1, 2003 625
32,500 August 27, 2003 500
35,000 January 30, 2004 500
37,500 July 31, 2004 420
40,000 February 10, 2005 360

Subject: WELCOME to rec.radio.amateur.*
X-Loop:

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

The author welcomes any and all constructive feedback. Please direct
all such feedback to and retain the original subject
(e.g., " WELCOME to rec.radio.amateur.*") in your reply.