[Elecraft] When referring to a certain page in the manual...

[Tom Hammond NØSS]

GM Folks:

I'm just as guilty as the next guy, so please understand that I'm not 
preaching here...

Many times, when we are attempting to help someone obtain assistance in 
building - completing - troubleshooting their rig, we refer them to the 
page in their manual.

The problem is that we often don't KNOW which manual they have at their 
disposal... I mean, we DO know that they have THE manual, such as _A_ K2 
manual, in their hands, but we don't know what VERSION of the manual they 
have. And believe me, no two versions are identical. As a result, when we 
refer to "... page XX in the K2 Manual...", when they go to that page, they 
expect to find what we're directing them to. But they WON'T find it there, 
because they have a different version of the manual. In fact, there are 
some instances where their manual doesn't even ADDRESS the subject we found 
the version of our manual.

So, let's try to remember to not only reference the model/option, page, and 
step/paragraph number, but also the REVISION letter/number of the manual 
from which we are quoting.

Although Elecraft has been pretty darn good about posting PDF copies of the 
latest version of the manuals for each of their options to their web site, 
they seem to not retain copies of the OLDER versions there as well. Many 
times, it's the older version which we used to build our rigs. If we manage 
to lose the hardcopy original of our manual, we must download a newer 
version to our PC for future use. While this is generally no problem, there 
have been times when the instructions, component descriptions, or values 
have changed from one manual revision to the next, and when we go back and 
try to re-trace our assembly steps, or confirm that we put every component 
in the proper location on the PC board, we no longer can... at least using 
the 'newer' version of the manual.

It would be very helpful, particularly to those of us who might have older 
rigs and options, for Elecraft to create a MANUAL ARCHIVES section on their 
web site which would contain any/all versions of previous manuals.

Stepping down from my soapbox... ducking and running...

73 - Tom Hammond   N0SS