I have just finished creating a basic FAQ for rec.radio.shortwave
which is titled "Users' Guide To rec.radio.shortwave" which I shall
post to the newsgroup (as well as making available on the web) in a
few moments (which is to say, after I first post this prefatorial and
finish my morning cup of coffee).

Because of this, I have decided it might be best for me to introduce
myself for the benefit of those who don't already know me, and to
explain what I'm trying to accomplish here.

I am John Kasupski, age 49 and a resident of the USA township of
Tonawanda, New York, which is a suburb of Buffalo. I have been a radio
hobbyist since I was eight years old and over the years have dabbled
variously in shortwave broadcast listening, AM broadcast band DXing,
scanner monitoring, CB radio, ham radio, and shortwave utility station
monitoring. I currently hold a General class ham ticket, callsign
KC2HMZ, and was also registered monitor KNY2VS back when CRB Research
used to issue those registry IDs. Currently, I'm active with two local
radio clubs and three or four public service organizations
(ARES/RACES, CERT, etc.), and I am a contributing editor for Popular
Communications Magazine, for which I write a monthly column on utility
communications as well as occasional feature articles.

I have decided to undertake this primarily for these reasons:

1. I am qualified to do so, being not only a person employed in the
business of writing about shortwave, but also being an experienced FAQ
maintainer who has maintained and continues to maintain an FAQ for one
of the sports-related newsgroups here on Usenet, and

2. If someone active in this newsgroup does not assume this
responsibility, the group in charge of rec.radio.info will eventually
do so. Insomuch as none of the members there seem to be active in this
newsgroup or post anything here other than to add to the pollution
here by using an autoposter to crosspost the FAQ from their group to
this one, frankly I'm inclined to wonder about their motives, but I
will not digress onto that tangent - suffice to say, I think it better
if the FAQ postings for rec.radio.shortwave are handled by someone who
is actually active in rec.radio.shortwave rather than by outsiders.

As set forth in the "Users' Guide To rec.radio.shortwave" document
that I shall post in a few minutes, I hope to also come up with other
documents to replace the set of postings that Ralph Brandi used to
maintain until they basically disappeared from the group back in 1996,
which I will write personally if necessary. However, I am not trying
to take over the newsgroup, own the newsgroup, moderate the newsgroup,
etc. - I am simply attempting to provide a service FOR users of this
newsgroup, BY users of this newsgroup. Thus I encourage everyone who
is knowledgeable in the radio arts to write articles explaining the
basics of various facets of the hobby such as SWBC DXing, QSLing,
AM/FM DXing, etc. to add to the new set of articles, and thus help
fill the void left when Mr. Brandi vacated his stewardship of these
various documents.

As for the document I shall post shortly, consider it a work in
progress, and feel free to supply comments and suggestions for
improving it - I'm sure I'm not the only intelligent person in this
newsgroup, and if two heads are better than one as the old cliche
holds, then with all the knowledge about radio that is on hand in this
group, it ought to be possible for us to collectively produce an
excellent reference on the subject!

73 DE John, KC2HMZ
http://www.kc2hmz.net
http://utecomm-digest.kc2hmz.net

(The first URL above is my personal website, with a healthy dose of
radio but also some other topics; the second is a subdomain I maintain
to supplement my column in Pop'Comm, and which has some resources some
of you may find useful)