Hi Tim.
Something that bugs me with e-groups in general is the number of people who have a relatively simple question/problem and give no indication that they have tried to solve it for themselves.
The questions that are basically ohms law, you know the things, "I need to charge this battery, what size resistor do I need and which side of the battery do I put it?" Now be reasonable, that was in your Tech exam syllabus.
Tell me what you've tried to solve the problem and I'm more likely to help. Don't expect me to be your Google operator!
As for the piggies, well.... piggies are generally simple minded beasts. On-off keying and anything that cycles faster than every 3nS or so is beyond most of them. Most piggies can't even spell "satellite".
n3tl@bellsouth.net wrote:
Hey Nigel,
Thank you for posting that. As I read the original post just now (before I opened your response), I found myself thinking ... "um ... try it?" hihi
Hope all is well with you. Did you see my post to the piggie reflector about including CW/SSB satellite contacts in the 10th Anniversary contest? No response, either on the reflector or off. That's a shame.
73,
Tim - N3TL
Well said Nigel, I am about to discontinue monitoring this group because of the plethora or "do it for me" questions... do the research first folks and then ask what you can't figure out for yourselves... That is called learning..
DE KD1PE Jack
----- Original Message ----- From: "Nigel Gunn G8IFF/W8IFF" nigel@ngunn.net To: n3tl@bellsouth.net Cc: "Amsat-BB" amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2009 2:18 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: DJ-G7T programming cable question
Hi Tim.
Something that bugs me with e-groups in general is the number of people who have a relatively simple question/problem and give no indication that they have tried to solve it for themselves.
The questions that are basically ohms law, you know the things, "I need to charge this battery, what size resistor do I need and which side of the battery do I put it?" Now be reasonable, that was in your Tech exam syllabus.
Tell me what you've tried to solve the problem and I'm more likely to help. Don't expect me to be your Google operator!
As for the piggies, well.... piggies are generally simple minded beasts. On-off keying and anything that cycles faster than every 3nS or so is beyond most of them. Most piggies can't even spell "satellite".
n3tl@bellsouth.net wrote:
Hey Nigel,
Thank you for posting that. As I read the original post just now (before I opened your response), I found myself thinking ... "um ... try it?" hihi
Hope all is well with you. Did you see my post to the piggie reflector about including CW/SSB satellite contacts in the 10th Anniversary contest? No response, either on the reflector or off. That's a shame.
73,
Tim - N3TL
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Well, there's a guy on eHam who responds to every question with "that's a stupid question" or "go look it up". That just doubles the amount of noise :-)
I'm all for experimenting as well, but randomly plugging unknown devices together is a good way to blow something up. What if the programming cable is putting out +-12v (EIA RS-232) but the radio only wants to see +5 (CMOS/TTL)?
73 de AJ4MJ
On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 4:18 PM, Nigel Gunn G8IFF/W8IFF nigel@ngunn.netwrote:
Hi Tim.
Something that bugs me with e-groups in general is the number of people who have a relatively simple question/problem and give no indication that they have tried to solve it for themselves.
The questions that are basically ohms law, you know the things, "I need to charge this battery, what size resistor do I need and which side of the battery do I put it?" Now be reasonable, that was in your Tech exam syllabus.
Tell me what you've tried to solve the problem and I'm more likely to help. Don't expect me to be your Google operator!
As for the piggies, well.... piggies are generally simple minded beasts. On-off keying and anything that cycles faster than every 3nS or so is beyond most of them. Most piggies can't even spell "satellite".
n3tl@bellsouth.net wrote:
Hey Nigel,
Thank you for posting that. As I read the original post just now (before I opened your response), I found myself thinking ... "um ... try it?"
hihi
Hope all is well with you. Did you see my post to the piggie reflector about including CW/SSB satellite contacts in the 10th Anniversary contest? No response, either on the reflector or off. That's a shame.
73,
Tim - N3TL
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Whether or not a question is raised after someone has actually tried to work it out for themselves or not is immaterial.
If this reflector, which lets face it is concerned with some fairly high level stuff in comparison to normal ham radio operations), is going to go the way of responding to a perfectly reasonable question with the reply of "read the ******g manual", then newcomers and interested observers are going to beat a hasty retreat thinking that AMSAT is elitist.
We must not be seen to be typical of the 'those that know' wanting to protect their playground mentality.
I have asked some downright stupidly basic questions on here over the years and have always been responded to with friendliness and professionalism even though I have often had a mental picture of my "helpers" banging their heads against a wall in frustration. But on the back of that I have been able to help with other people's issues where the same question has arisen.
If questions offend then use a combination of filters and the delete key.
My 2 peso's worth.
David KG4ZLB
Justin Pinnix wrote:
Well, there's a guy on eHam who responds to every question with "that's a stupid question" or "go look it up". That just doubles the amount of noise :-)
I'm all for experimenting as well, but randomly plugging unknown devices together is a good way to blow something up. What if the programming cable is putting out +-12v (EIA RS-232) but the radio only wants to see +5 (CMOS/TTL)?
73 de AJ4MJ
On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 4:18 PM, Nigel Gunn G8IFF/W8IFF nigel@ngunn.netwrote:
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Surely we should encourage people to think for themselves and at least try to sort their own issues. What are they going to do when the more experienced are no longer here.
Isn't "Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime" relevent here?
David - KG4ZLB wrote:
Whether or not a question is raised after someone has actually tried to work it out for themselves or not is immaterial.
No, don't agree.
Man has to eat and will learn or be taught to fish or die!
If man can not program his radio and can not work it out for himself and can't get a reply on a board such as this then he will go and maybe never come back and that's another satellite operator we may have lost.
But he will still eat :-D
David KG4ZLB
Nigel Gunn G8IFF/W8IFF wrote:
Surely we should encourage people to think for themselves and at least try to sort their own issues. What are they going to do when the more experienced are no longer here.
Isn't "Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime" relevent here?
David - KG4ZLB wrote:
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." seems more appropriate to me. My delete key gets warm some times, but that is why it was put there. 73, Jim ps: This was an exception. :-)
Nigel Gunn G8IFF/W8IFF wrote:
Surely we should encourage people to think for themselves and at least try to sort their own issues. What are they going to do when the more experienced are no longer here.
Isn't "Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime" relevent here?
David - KG4ZLB wrote:
Whether or not a question is raised after someone has actually tried to work it out for themselves or not is immaterial.
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Cheers to you David! You just talked me out of unsubscribing to this BB. I'm licensed 2 years and still trying to figure out what the question is, let alone the answer.
Steve. KI6OQU Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
-----Original Message----- From: David - KG4ZLB kg4zlb@googlemail.com
Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:13:05 To: Amsat-BBamsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: DJ-G7T programming cable question
Whether or not a question is raised after someone has actually tried to work it out for themselves or not is immaterial.
If this reflector, which lets face it is concerned with some fairly high level stuff in comparison to normal ham radio operations), is going to go the way of responding to a perfectly reasonable question with the reply of "read the ******g manual", then newcomers and interested observers are going to beat a hasty retreat thinking that AMSAT is elitist.
We must not be seen to be typical of the 'those that know' wanting to protect their playground mentality.
I have asked some downright stupidly basic questions on here over the years and have always been responded to with friendliness and professionalism even though I have often had a mental picture of my "helpers" banging their heads against a wall in frustration. But on the back of that I have been able to help with other people's issues where the same question has arisen.
If questions offend then use a combination of filters and the delete key.
My 2 peso's worth.
David KG4ZLB
Justin Pinnix wrote:
Well, there's a guy on eHam who responds to every question with "that's a stupid question" or "go look it up". That just doubles the amount of noise :-)
I'm all for experimenting as well, but randomly plugging unknown devices together is a good way to blow something up. What if the programming cable is putting out +-12v (EIA RS-232) but the radio only wants to see +5 (CMOS/TTL)?
73 de AJ4MJ
On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 4:18 PM, Nigel Gunn G8IFF/W8IFF nigel@ngunn.netwrote:
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
_______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
There is considerable value in making new members of the community aware of common and sometimes very informative published resources, however. There's a wealth of information in those that should very well be tapped especially for technically complex questions.
The trick is in positioning a referral to those resources in such a way that it doesn't feel like an "RTFM" brush-off, which in many cases, it really isn't. I run into this a lot in tech support, and the best positioning I've found is to give at least a gloss of the subject matter in a reply, and then include "this is covered in more detail at (insert resource here)". Sometimes the brief gloss of the answer is all that's needed, but for the times when it's not, following up with the resource referral leaves the person equipped to gather more detail on it from that.
On Jun 9, 2009, at 5:13 PM, David - KG4ZLB wrote:
Whether or not a question is raised after someone has actually tried to work it out for themselves or not is immaterial.
If this reflector, which lets face it is concerned with some fairly high level stuff in comparison to normal ham radio operations), is going to go the way of responding to a perfectly reasonable question with the reply of "read the ******g manual", then newcomers and interested observers are going to beat a hasty retreat thinking that AMSAT is elitist.
We must not be seen to be typical of the 'those that know' wanting to protect their playground mentality.
I have asked some downright stupidly basic questions on here over the years and have always been responded to with friendliness and professionalism even though I have often had a mental picture of my "helpers" banging their heads against a wall in frustration. But on the back of that I have been able to help with other people's issues where the same question has arisen.
If questions offend then use a combination of filters and the delete key.
My 2 peso's worth.
David KG4ZLB
Justin Pinnix wrote:
Well, there's a guy on eHam who responds to every question with "that's a stupid question" or "go look it up". That just doubles the amount of noise :-)
I'm all for experimenting as well, but randomly plugging unknown devices together is a good way to blow something up. What if the programming cable is putting out +-12v (EIA RS-232) but the radio only wants to see +5 (CMOS/TTL)?
73 de AJ4MJ
"Good, 'cause, you know, we want to report that the country's a lot stranger than it was a year ago." -- Toby Ziegler
At 02:13 PM 6/9/2009, David - KG4ZLB wrote:
Whether or not a question is raised after someone has actually tried to work it out for themselves or not is immaterial.
If this reflector, which lets face it is concerned with some fairly high level stuff in comparison to normal ham radio operations), is going to go the way of responding to a perfectly reasonable question with the reply of "read the ******g manual", then newcomers and interested observers are going to beat a hasty retreat thinking that AMSAT is elitist.
We must not be seen to be typical of the 'those that know' wanting to protect their playground mentality.
I have asked some downright stupidly basic questions on here over the years and have always been responded to with friendliness and professionalism even though I have often had a mental picture of my "helpers" banging their heads against a wall in frustration. But on the back of that I have been able to help with other people's issues where the same question has arisen.
If questions offend then use a combination of filters and the delete key.
My 2 peso's worth.
David KG4ZLB
As one who has answered a few questions over the years (many time the same questions, repeatedly), it suggests placing the answers into a FAQ on the web to refer folks to. But for each questioner its a "new' question for them. So if you want to help, answer them. If the question bores you, delete and let someone else help. I do think many folks could find some of these answers with a little digging on their own. But it all comes to helping or not. There are enough experts on the bb to share the task.
73, Ed - KL7UW
On Tue, 2009-06-09 at 19:33 -0800, Edward Cole wrote:
As one who has answered a few questions over the years (many time the same questions, repeatedly), it suggests placing the answers into a FAQ on the web to refer folks to. But for each questioner its a "new' question for them. So if you want to help, answer them.
Answering them with "It's in the FAQ", perhaps? What *is* annoying is when you ask a question that *on the face of it* seems like an obvious RTFM but is actually a little more complex, only to be deluged with "RTFM" answers.
Gordon
What *is* annoying is when you ask a question that *on the face of it* seems like an obvious RTFM but is actually a little more complex, only to be deluged with "RTFM" answers.
It was a Fashion on this BB in the AO-40 time. Those who knows look at those who don't from a different level... There is no stupid question and if this BB still have some use lets those who want to help free to answer even if it is an obvious RTFM case at your eyes.
I fight this mentality back years ago and even with instructions booklets you still need the other experience just read the IC-220H manual and you will see even with the RTFM you will need to practice a lot.
If only one question can save time and frustation the another one i feel it worth the time spent to answer his question.
"-"
Luc Leblanc VE2DWE Skype VE2DWE www.qsl.net/ve2dwe WAC BASIC CW PHONE SATELLITE
There might not be a stupid question but there are certainly those that are too lazy to first try to help themselves and expect others to do everything for them.
Luc Leblanc wrote:
It was a Fashion on this BB in the AO-40 time. Those who knows look at those who don't from a different level... There is no stupid question and if this BB still have some use lets those who want to help free to answer even if it is an obvious RTFM case at your eyes.
I fight this mentality back years ago and even with instructions booklets you still need the other experience just read the IC-220H manual and you will see even with the RTFM you will need to practice a lot.
If only one question can save time and frustation the another one i feel it worth the time spent to answer his question.
Actually, a better approach might be to answer the question and also include a reference to the location. The asker then sees a way to look that he or she may not know. Also avoids making incorrect assumptions. I see this method used a lot on technical mailing lists.
This way, we "teach others to fish for themselves."
Mark Lunday WD4ELG wd4elg@arrl.net http://wd4elg.net
-----Original Message----- From: amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of Nigel Gunn G8IFF/W8IFF Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 12:11 PM To: Luc Leblanc Cc: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: RTFM question
There might not be a stupid question but there are certainly those that are too lazy to first try to help themselves and expect others to do everything for them.
Luc Leblanc wrote:
It was a Fashion on this BB in the AO-40 time. Those who knows look at
those who don't from a different level... There is no stupid
question and if this BB still have some use lets those who want to help
free to answer even if it is an obvious RTFM case at your eyes.
I fight this mentality back years ago and even with instructions booklets
you still need the other experience just read the IC-220H manual
and you will see even with the RTFM you will need to practice a lot.
If only one question can save time and frustation the another one i feel
it worth the time spent to answer his question. _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
At 11:03 AM 6/11/2009, Mark Lunday wrote:
Actually, a better approach might be to answer the question and also include a reference to the location. The asker then sees a way to look that he or she may not know. Also avoids making incorrect assumptions. I see this method used a lot on technical mailing lists.
This way, we "teach others to fish for themselves."
Agree. I try and give the answer, then an explanation for the answer (i.e. any underlying theory, etc), and a reference they can read up in their own time. Quite a few people I've done that with end up going off on their own and tinkering. :)
Not quite satellites, but one guy that needed me to fix an IRLP reflector of his, because he was installing some stuff I had developed on it. I didn't have a lot of time, so over time, I have him little bits on what these scripts actually did, and also determined that he was trying to do something for which they weren't designed. Eventually, he was able to use the information I gave to fix his problem (and do something fairly advanced that I had never gotten around to doing myself :) ).
73 de VK3JED / VK3IRL http://vkradio.com
I called that the plug and play syndrome. Who's the one who never try to use his new gadget right out from the box without reading the instructions first? You? it's not a question to be lazy but too eager to play with. In the end you confirm what i said in a previous post you agree with it but in a different manner. That's what makes us so unique!
On 10 Jun 2009 at 16:11, Nigel Gunn G8IFF/W8IFF wrote:
There might not be a stupid question but there are certainly those that are too lazy to first try to help themselves and expect others to do everything for them.
Luc Leblanc wrote:
It was a Fashion on this BB in the AO-40 time. Those who knows look at those who don't from a different level... There is no stupid question and if this BB still have some use lets those who want to help free to answer even if it is an obvious RTFM case at your eyes.
I fight this mentality back years ago and even with instructions booklets you still need the other experience just read the IC-220H manual and you will see even with the RTFM you will need to practice a lot.
If only one question can save time and frustation the another one i feel it worth the time spent to answer his question.
"-"
Luc Leblanc VE2DWE Skype VE2DWE www.qsl.net/ve2dwe WAC BASIC CW PHONE SATELLITE
participants (12)
-
Bruce Bostwick -
David - KG4ZLB -
Edward Cole -
Gordon JC Pearce -
Jack K. -
Jim Wright -
Justin Pinnix -
Luc Leblanc -
Mark Lunday -
Nigel Gunn G8IFF/W8IFF -
Steve Bluemel -
Tony Langdon