[amsat-bb] Re: DJ-G7T programming cable question

[Bruce Bostwick]

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