To those of you who are ham radio operator: Is there a good NG left? alt.ham-radio seems near dead (possibly thanks to this New York AG ...), what's left there is the usual gmail spam. Is there another?
I have a somewhat hardcore problem with a Icom R1500 (similar to PCR1500) scanner receiver that I am mostly using as an EMI sniffer. The control from a PC is rather sluggish and I cannot get the USB audio link to work. Only the virtual COM port and that's behaving a bit odd as well. I can't imagine being the only one because I've read similar stories on the web but no solutions that worked.
rec.radio.amateur.homebrew isn't too bad, spam-wise. rec.radio.amateur.antenna is even better -- some surprisingly smart guys still hang out there.
There is a Yahoo! PCR1500 group -- that's probably what I'd try first. (Although I've never poked around in it... I have poked around in the PCR2500 Yahoo! group though, and it's decent.)
Most of the radio groups are full of trolls and flamewars these days. A few groups are moderated. (Some in this list may be Google Groups only, and Yahoo has some groups dedicated to a single brand.)
In no particular order: news:rec.radio.shortwave Shortwave radio enthusiasts.
news:rec.radio.amateur.antenna Antennas: theory, techniques and construction.
news:rec.radio.amateur.policy Radio use & regulation policy.
news:rec.radio.swap Offers to trade and swap radio equipment.
news:rec.radio.amateur.boatanchors Vacuum tube-based amateur radio equipment.
news:rec.radio.amateur.homebrew Amateur radio construction and experimentation.
news:rec.radio.amateur.equipment All about production amateur radio hardware.
news:rec.radio.amateur.dx Discussion, tips, notices and news for DXers.
news:rec.radio.info Informational postings related to radio. (Moderated)
news:alt.radio.scanner Use news:rec.radio.scanner instead.
news:rec.radio.amateur.space Amateur radio transmissions through space.
news:rec.radio.amateur.digital.misc Packet radio and other digital radio modes.
news:rec.radio.noncomm Topics relating to noncommercial radio.
news:pl.rec.radio.amatorskie Krotkofalarstwo, packet radio, sport DX-owy.
news:alt.ham-radio.packet Use news:rec.radio.amateur.digital.misc instead.
news:fr.rec.radio.amateur Activités et techniques radio-amateurs.
news:fr.rec.radio Discussions sur la radio (tous domaines confondus).
news:hr.rec.radio.amateri Radioamaterstvo
news:rec.radio.amateur Language: English
news:rec.radio.amateur.moderated Amateur radio practices, rules, etc. (Moderated)
news:rec.radio Language: English
news:rec.radio.amateur.swap Language: English
news:tw.bbs.rec.radio.amateur ???????
news:dxtalk This group is pretty much like news:rec.radio.shortwave is supposed to be. It's discussion of shortwave-related topics, without all the off-topic crapola.
news:tw.bbs.rec.radio ??,??????
news:es.rec.radio.amateur Discusion sobre radioaficion y temas afines. Language: Spanish
news:hr.rec.radio Radio u Hrvatskoj... Language: Croatian
news:pl.rec.radio Radio, krotkofalarstwo itp. Language: Polish
news:hr.rec.radio.amateri Language: English
news:chile.rec.radio Discusion sobre la radio en Chile. Language: Spanish
news:rec-radio.qrp-l For and about QRP operation. Language: English
news:rec-radio-qrp For and about QRP Amateur Radio. Language: English
news:pt.rec.radio.amadorismo Assuntos relacionados com Radio Amadorismo. Language: Portuguese (Portugal)
news:es.rec.radio.misc Temas varios sobre radio.
news:rec.radio.amateur.packet
news:rec.radio.amateur.digital
news:pl.rec.radio.amatorskie Language: Polish
news:es.rec.radio.ondacorta Temas sobre recepción de emisoras en onda corta. Language: Spanish
news:es.rec.radio
news:pnet.rec.radio.amateur.talk
news:Rec Radio Amateur Policy An alternate site for the discussion of policy issues affecting Amateur Radio. This group is not moderated. However, bad behavior will not be tolerated, (we have learned a lesson with RRAP) Language: English
news:rec-radio.amateur.qrp For and about QRP Amateur Radio. Language: English
news:Rec Radio Swap Kenwood 930S....HELP. Looking for a Mini-connector cable # E40-0873-05.
8 conductor running between Digital unit and PLL. No longer available at Kenwood. Thanks. Chris snipped-for-privacy@racsa.co.cr Language: Spanish
news:rec.radio.amateur.misc Amateur radio practices, contests, events, rules, etc. Language: English
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Rec.radio.amateur.homebrew and rec.radio.amateur.antenna sometimes have interesting stuff. Although the crackpots on the antenna group are just relentless with their crap.
But I'm afraid that the world has moved on past Usenet groups for the most part. I've been using Usenet since the mid-80's and I still am but there's a lot of other mechanisms out there too.
For individual radio brands and radios and computer control of those radios there are often web-based groups that go into great detail about things like your issue. I don't have any Icom radios, but I do follow these rather specific groups on Yahoo groups: emrfd (topics related to the book "Experimental Methods in RF Design"), thetransoceanicfanatic (Zenith Transoceanics), a few different Elecraft K2 groups, a group dedicated to my favorite keyer (K1EL) etc. and would not be surprised if somewhere there they have an Icom- specifc R1500 group.
The gotcha with Yahoo groups is that, not too surprisingly, it's not well indexed by Google. To make things even worse they aren't too well indexed by Yahoo either because those who originate the groups like to use very clubby group names. Most of them are readable by "subscribers only" which is really sucky, turning one big internet into a zillion little self-selecting clubs. I obviously see Yahoo trying to break the one big internet that Google indexes into a zillion little private networks, and I personally think that's the stupidest thing in the world, but here I am subscribing and posting to those private Yahoo groups....!!!! :-(
Yahoo has IMHO such a crummy web interface, and not much participation. I did get one response there so far but it doesn't help me with finding out why the Icom drivers don't work well (the USB stream doesn't work at all).
Simple: AG sez alt groups (which contain lots with binary privileges) are evil, gets lots of publicity, tells ISPs to do "something" or else. Many ISP seem to have deep-sixed alt groups altogether. Then traffic comes to a crawl and the weeds grow. Just like they do on foreclosed properties.
Yeah, to some extent that may be true. Until we have some big disaster and the cell tower backup batt/gen peters out ...
Thanks, Michael. I did a pretty lengthy web search and not much came up regarding these PC-based radios. But I'll try again, see if I find something in the groups you mentioned.
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