[Milsurplus] [armyradios] Manual Archive

[J. Forster]

Here story in outline:

In about 1999, I got re-interested in the WS19 set. I'd used it in the
Cadets as a teen. At about the same time, eBay made it fairly easy to get
a complete setup. It was reccomended that I join the Canadian WS19 Group,
operated by Bob Cooke et al, which I did along with a ham friend,
operating on their nets, etc.

A controversy started about sending cypher groups as an exercise on the CW
nets. The Group Owner got outraged and bounced a few people.

My ham friend, Chuck, Keith Watt, and I decided to form a competing Group.
I has only dial-up at the time so Watt became Group Owner, Chuck and I
moderators.

We wanted to increase membership, so I conceived a couple of things. One
was contacting winning bidders on eBay for WS19 items- that pissed of eBay
after a bit.

The second was a 'honeypot'- an archive of military radio manuals. We
solicited manuals or bought them on eBay with mostly my money, and then
scanned them for the site. Some members of VMARS also lent manuals, but
say they were never returned. I only sent Xeroxes of my originals across
the Atlantic to the UK. Many (most) of the first 500 manuals are scans
from my originals.

My original idea was to use the manual archive as a honeypot for Group
membership, but Watt morphed that into requiring Group membership for
access. The password thing came from seeing manual CDs being sold on eBay
by people just downloading free manuals, making CDs, and selling them.

I have ALWAYS taken the position that FREE MEANS FREE. Period. No strings.

It rapidly became clear, Yahoo did not have adequate file space. I found a
Mil related site, Trackpads, that was willing to host the archive. In
about 2004/5/6 Trackpads had grown and wanted the manual archive out.

So, Keith, Alistair, and I put up the funds for Royal Signals, and the
archive was moved there.

Sometime thereafter, there was a Chinese 'member' who wanted hundreds of
manuals. As a response, the ISP restrictions and longer passwords were
implemented, as well as additional hoop-jumping and download limits.

I protested, and Keith threw me out. I still believe FREE MEANS FREE.

Yesterday, someone sent me Watt's recent email last, complaining about the
exact situation he, himself caused. To me, that is utterly ridiculous.

So, there it is: The manuals, which are Public Domain, are ONLY accessible
via a very picky robot gatekeeper. and the 'bot's price is membership in a
group that may well be of no interest.

-John

=======================




> I wonder if anyone has reminded this guy that since these are
> public-domain documents, restricting access to them or charging a fee may
> in fact be illegal. I am coming in on the tail end of this, and I'm aware
> of it. But I agree that free access means just that and public-domain
> means just that. He is clearly in the wrong. While I understand that
> scanning the documents in takes time, he legally can't charge for it.
>
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID
>
> Jason W6IEE <w6iee.73 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Â 
>>
>>Chris,
>>
>>
>>Thank you. I refuse to goose-step, salute, and shout "Jawohl!!" just to
>> obtain public-domain documents.
>>
>>
>>Its hard enough to find time and energy as it is to work on this old
>> gear, I can't understand anyone's motives that would cause us to jump
>> through additional hoops trying to reach that end.
>>
>>
>>When I have some time later in the week, I will try to see if I have any
>> documents you don't, and submit them. I've found that all you have to so
>> is "re-save" a PDF and then the password requirement is no more. ;)
>>
>>
>>Thanks again,
>>
>>Jason W6IEE
>>
>>
>>"This *specific* situation was the catalyst in the decision to build
>> out radionerds.com and my commitment to allow complete and
unrestricted copy and downloads."