[Milsurplus] New Groups: What a "Grate" Idea

[Hue Miller]

Dave, i understand your point perfectly.  Next, we'll have a group
on knobs used on Spy Radios. My initial response to seeing the
post announcing the new group was the same as yours. Here we
go again. ( Actually, altho i signed up, i still feel the same.)
Plus, it's offensive as hell to have to put up with Yahoo's ad
barrage - altho i confess, i do not have a viable alternative to
offer.
The only thing i can think, is that some people are hesitant to post
minutiae about narrow topics, thinking that some irate grumpus
will scream about "this thread has gone on too long", "waste of
bandwidth" etc etc etc - all pure bullpoop, unless they're still using
a Commodore 64 and cannot read the Subject line. Myself, i subscribe
to a couple health-related lists that generate 10x the mail milsurplus,
spy-radio, and No.19 set lists do, and i manage to delete the titles
i don't care about, no problem.
I have thought that perhaps posting to spy-radio is a waste of my
time too. I have a limited supply of time - if i found an interesting book,
or an article with an interesting fact - do i want to write a post for
20 people, or put it out there before hundreds? Do i want to write
a long post for 20? 100? For example, in the real world, if i have some
facts about the RS-6, do i want to post it to a list of 25 people, or
throw it out before the crowd here? I dunno - i have not figured this
out for myself. Sometimes i feel if i post something like this here,
i get a "Say wot?" response. Dead air. Maybe most readers here
really dig GRC-106's and PRC-74s and that's the extent of it. Maybe
there should be, or already is, a dividing line between the "classics"
and the stuff that (i feel) is just more contemporary ham gear, like
SSB synthesized boat radios. Altho Starks' email MRG seemed to
pretty well provide a home for the whole spectrum of interest.

Actually, the now extinct Dennis Starks' list had some advantages
over lists that were either so narrowly focused  ( like the BC-348
screws list ) or on the other hand, lists that are open to all comers,
 including the few people who cannot deal with posts longer than 3 lines.
At least there, you knew the readers were pretty hardcore, and if not
interested in some particular facet, at least respected those who were,
and respected the research posted there. That's one thing i liked about
his list: It was kinda like it was a list that could be called, "Research Into
Military Communications".  IF you wanted to post an article there about
screws used in the BC-348, it was welcome, and nobody was afraid it
would upset anyone else, and no one felt shy about posting such an
article if they wanted.  Sometimes i think the feeling here is it's like
some ham dx-alert net: post your dx alert in 3 lines and clear. "There's
a new Mk19 set on Ebay".  "I have 3 T-24 to sell" Over and out.

Also the non-democratic  nature of Dennis's dictatorship had its 
advantages, in that for the most part, those who were booted out or 
disallowed to join, generally (not always, maybe ) deserved it.
Regards, Hue Miller