"Michael Lawson" ) writes:

Of course, the FAQ is a living document, and can be amended
as needed. When the FAQ was last modified in 1995, satellite
radio in it's current form did not exist. Nor internet radio.
Websites like rffun (Universal's), eham and others did not exist
in their present form, and all that disseminated knowledge
is not reflected in the FAQ. It would save a lot of time and
energy repeating commonly known things if the FAQ were
simply updated.

The FAQ is a response to commonly asked questions. There is no
requirement for a newsgroup to have one, and there isn't anything
official about it. Someone gets tired of the repetitive questions,
and puts them together with answers. Either it stays, or someone
comes up with a better one.

More important is the charter and even the discussion leading up
to the creation of the newsgroup.

I went and dug up some of that back on Apr 24 2003 in a thread titled
"Recreation Radio Shortwave: Mission Statement - Charter" with links
to early newsgroup articles.

Sadly, the new google interface means that the links to those
old articles don't work. You can still retrieve the links by
clicking the "view original post" link, but then one has to cut
and paste them in. I can't be bothered doing all that again.

But from when I did do that earlier checking, it's clear that this
newsgroup is about more than shortwave. It's about receiving so
it includes long wave and AM broadcast band and FM broadcast band.
I can't quote at the moment, but my interpertation is that it was
meant to be about DX'ing, ie not talking about the local top forty
FM station, but room enough for discussing hearing that Mississippi
station for a few minutes in the summer when you are a long way away.

Again my interpretation based on that earlier reading is that it
wasn't mean for political discussion.

I should also point out that it wasn't intended to be another newsgroup
for amateur radio. There is a whole hierarchy for that,
rec.radio.amateur.* Obviously there are times when amateur radio can
come up here, like someone wanting to tune the ham bands and isn't sure
where they are. But it's not intended things that only pertain to
being licensed, and it sure isn't meant to be a spillover from
rec.radio.amateur.misc or rec.radio.amateur.policy and some fools
seem to think.


Michael