[Premium-Rx] Manuals

[Michael O'Beirne]

Hi folks,

    George and Gary are spot on a propos the quality of most modern manuals.  I have not seen the Icom 7800's manual, but judging from the manuals of other microprocessed amateur rigs, I would run a mile.  

    The problem is that their authors seem incapable of expressing their thoughts in a logical and cogent sequence.  Unnecessarily technical words are used to disguise the fact that they probably do not understand the matter themselves fully.  The other aspect is that many manuals are written at the back end of a project.  One feels sometimes that the expense of creating a good manual is eating into company profits.  Some like Collins, HP, Tektronix and Racal are honourable exceptions, and no doubt others.  The English versions of some R&S manuals are imbued with a certain imperative approach to life rather like "we have ways of making you understand this manual", but that is perhaps being unkind and cruel in a "Faulty Towers" sort of way, or perhaps they need a different translator with a greater lightness of touch and a little more humour.

    Of the commercial radio manuals which I have seen, my first vote is that for the Racal RA1772.  There are three A4 ring binders - a fairly thin operator's book, a fat one of circuits and parts lists and another fat one for the words, and all carefully divided into paragraphs and sub-paragraphs and the circuits beautifully drawn with colour overlay for the PCB layouts, not the jungle of lines that one finds in so many Japanese circuits that more resemble the railway layout at Clapham Junction station, near Waterloo [it's the most complex rail junction in the UK].

    [As an aside, why in old American circuits is the HT line shown below the earth line whereas the whole of UK and Europe show it (to us more logically) at the very top of the circuit?]

    My second vote is for the manual for the HP 8640B genie.  The fanfold circuitry must have cost a fortune to print and assemble.  My third is for the many Heathkit projects that occupied my early years in electronics (happy times) and keep me going in my idle moments as old age and the Grim Reaper begin to beckon slowly from the remote horizon.

    The British Army's EMERs (repair manuals) are a good example of simple lucid writing.  The readers will not have MAs and may well be repairing the equipment under highly uncomfortable and possibly dangerous conditions.  The manuals have to conform to what is called "service writing" conventions which demand clarity, succinctness and logic.  Unneeded jargon will not earn the author promotion or attract brownie points.  I expect that the US military have similar rules.

    I contrast the position with most computer books.  I am not a software man and make little pretence of being much interested in computers.  Mine is just a glorified typewriter or telex machine and it fails to the extent that it does not do exactly what I want it to do.  I have struggled valiantly with the MS manuals, and they are not too bad once you approach them as if one was learning, say, German or Serbo-Croat, but those of the more "popular" computer writers are so befuddled with jargon that I give up in despair.  Without exception they fail to show me the logic of what I am supposed to be doing and make unacceptable logical leaps with big holes in the middle, what English lawyers quaintly call "lacunae" - the Latin for "hollows" or "gaps".

    I remember ages back being involved with a new radio/data system for my former brigade.  The software was being developed by some clever guys from a well-known UK manufacturer.  They, however, had clearly never spent a night out under the stars.  They had certainly never tried operating under full NBC tactical conditions in hot putrid "noddy suits" with 48 hours arrears of sleep.  We told them in a few choice words to think again and redesign the operating system.  [I suspect they also realised that we had negotiated a financial clawback provision in the Ministry's contract if the system did not work to spec - quite a novelty in those days].  In fairness they were smart, they saw the point and things became a lot better.  It is this man/machine interface that is so often the cause of so many problems.  I have always maintained that it is very easy to make a machine very complicated (viz the 7800's front panel).  It is umpteen times more difficult to make a complicated machine very simple to operate (viz most military backpacks such as the PRC320 or a receiver such as the RA1792).

Regards and 73s
Michael
G8MOB
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