[R-390] Some more Self-inflicted wounds?

[Roger Ruszkowski]

Fellows,

If had to reply to every critic of my spelling, grammar, miss use of words,
humor that went clean over your heads, humor that feel flat in the mail before
arrival and just dumb wrong statements I have posted, I would never get to close a thread.

I will be honest with you all, you are my writing skills feed back team. Back when Wanda said
to me Roger your writing skills suck you need to practice. Back in 73 an English teacher in 
Okinawa commented to me that every paper I did in his class was on the R390A receiver.
And ask was it the only thing I could write about. I said not but it is the subject I can write
about and get an assignment done on time with only a couple of drafts. I am still writing
R390 papers as impromptu exercising in writing skills. You Fellows are reading them and
giving me good feed back. I thank each and every one of you who have sent me an
e mail that commented on my writing. I do wish some of you would work on your
critical feed back skills. 

After 20 years at Hughes Aircraft as a systems test engineer I can also now write a
coherent test procedure test step and do well with boiler plate test reports.

Not much market for these limited skills.

But people own R390's and have problems with their R390's and did not receive 18 months
of training on their R390's maintenance. I love these receivers and do not want to ever
hear that one got junked. Just do not even bother to post the story. I can live the rest of
my life and never need to know. 

So these people come to the reflector and ask questions. Not knowing R390 jargon, and not knowing
exactly what the problem is they some times offer up some very vague questions. Mostly you Fellows 
are very knowledgeable  and do a super job of being very helpful to quickly offer up a diagnostic process 
to isolate the problem for them. Then  you go on to help them fix the problem and if necessary find parts.

If the solution was to tell them to download a copy of the TM and read the book, I think we would be not
mentoring well. We have the R390.net page and we have the Pearls of Wisdom and we have the Y2K
manual and we have the reflector archives. And the solution is still not to tell your readers with questions
go read the web pages.

We are mentors. We know where this stuff is. Your job is to distil your readers question so we can 
provide them a correct solution that solves their problem and not our perceived problem of their problem.
Success is determined by our reader. If we are not solving someone's problem we are wasting everyone's time.
This brings us back to mentoring. We were asked a question because some one though we would help them 
with a quick solution. Making a careers of repairing R390's is not out readers most important objective. As
good mentors I see we need to utilize the resources we have compiled over the years to assist our readers.
We do this by cutting and pasting the best response back into an e mail and posting it. So what if we answer
the exact same question 6 time sin six years for 6 readers. These are six new readers who are just having the
same repeated problem with their receiver and we know its a common problem. But out new reader does not
know this.

We are Ann and Abby Landers writing advice to our readers. Ann and Abby write on a different topics 
than we do as we try stay on the topic of R390's and off the topics of Ann, Abby, Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz.
We are none the less just column writers. And as we deal with a very specific technical topic 
(the care and feeding of R390's and R390A's and their near relatives R388's R389's and a couple more)
[some one will post the exact nomenclature and remind me I missed them] I think we provide a more
important service and certainly to a much smaller audience. But we should not underestimate what
we are doing and the value of the service we provide to others who share an interest we have in
Amateur radio, antique radio and electronics. 

We do not see Ann Landers or Abby writing that gee Dr. Phil, I so disagree with the last personal view
you posted. 

We have an open reflector here so questions can get in. Any one can also take a shot at doing
a Ann landers or dear Abby response to any question.  We can all practice our writing skills
an entertain a group of readers along the way.


As long as I am up on this soap box, I think many of us forget the long shadow this reflector 
has. Every post I have ever made is still on line. Every post any one makes to this reflector 
is on line. You can get rude crude and off topic today but it will be on line forever. In these days
where more than 30 percent of employers do web searches on prospective employees think
about what you post. You are not anonymous in what goes into the R390 archives. 
You have to ask your self do I want a future employer and co workers, reading my posts and analyzing
the comments I make about some one, thus getting yourself tagged as mean, disrespectful,
insensitive, not a team player, a potential source of discontent, indiscreet, and plain crass.

Or do you understand and see that every post you put on the R390 reflector is just like
graffiti on the building wall. Its your tag. Its your art. It says a lot about you, your gang
and your standing in the gang. Your post are a display of your writing skills. Your subject
matter says a lot about personality. 

A lot of people would like to post a lot of things on this reflector. But I ask you to
stop and think about what you write. Maybe you should just hit the delete
key instead of the send key, go get another cold brew, and remain employable
by not having an e mail post limit your employment opportunities for the rest of your life.

I am happy Don does not moderate this list tightly. I get to express my self.

Just my three cents worth.

Roger Ruszkowski  AI4NI 33C4H  68 - 73  Vietnam, Korea, Okinawa, Ft Devens Mass. not in exact  order.