[R-390] A modest proposal (was Y2K Addendum)

[Tim Shoppa]

OK, my mind is oversimplistic this Christmas. But let me try to
categorize the things running around in my mind:

1. The Y2K Manual is a nice electronic edition of what's in
   TM 11-5820-358-35 (Field and Depot Maintenance Manual), PLUS
   it includes many of the military-approved mods, PLUS it is
   cross-indexed in a few interesting ways (broken out schematics,
   etc.)

   The scope of the Y2K manual, in other words, is almost the same
   as the scope of the military maintenance manual.

2. There are some misprints/typos/incorrect statements in the Y2K
   manual, most of which have been discussed here in the past or
   are self-evident on comparison with reality.

3. There are lots of other resources out there on the 'net and
   elsewhere which are very useful. BUT... if we tried to put them
   into a form like the Y2K manual it blows it out of the water
   in terms of size/weight/editing effort.

4. Some of the "other" resources consist of opinions and factoids which
   have been the subject of much discussion, and occasional vitriol,
   on this mailing list and in other places. Incorporating these might
   prove difficult (unless we've got a single editor with an iron fist,
   in which case we may all end up disagreeing with the result in at least
   one and maybe multiple major ways!)

So, MY opinions:

A. Limit the Y2K addendum to corrections to the current document and
   things that "should have been" in the field/depot maintenance manual.
   The one thing I can think of that "should have been" is the teardown/
   rebuild of the RF deck mechanisms, ala Scott Seickel's very fine
   writeup and photos. And seeing as how Scott's writeup is so fine
   already, I don't feel that it should have to go through an editing
   process - just link to it.

B. For the things that are not clearly in the scope of the original
   field/depot maintenance manual, we already have this mailing list,
   it's archives, and Wu Li's selected and categorized extracts from
   the list. The wonderful things about these forms is that we don't
   have to all agree as to what goes in - skip the editorial process
   and give access to the raw stuff.

C. What would be useful is an electronic index to certain factoids to
   make it easier to dig up previously posted facts. Sifting through
   the mailing list archives can be difficult, as a month's worth of
   postings often tops a megabyte, and even Wu Li's Pearls is less
   straightforward to search than I'd like (popping open a dozen or
   so PDF's and searching each by hand is cumbersome at best.) I'm
   thinking that I should be able to type "C227" into a search engine
   and have it come up with past posts to this list and maybe into the
   Pearls that tell me more about C227, and even better (you know
   I'm dreaming now!) show it to me in the schematic and in a photo
   of the chassis.

   Now Google does not serve as the electronic index: qth.net's mailing
   lists are excluded by QTH's sysadmins from being crawled by Google.

   BUT I can imagine a search engine that does know about, for example,
   part numbers and common "noise" threads (e.g. ballast replacement!)
   and gets to what I want.

So am I too far off-base in my proposal? I happen to have some time
coming up in mid-January, as I recover from a certain common elective
surgery and will not be allowed to work on the house or haul around
80 pound radios, that maybe I could put something like my modest proposal
of a R-390A specific search engine together. Am I onto a good idea, or a pipe
dream, or worthless drivel?

Tim KA0BTD.