Hi all. I'm still really curious why ham.stackexchange.com/questions/156/… got downvoted. Anyone have any idea why it might have been? (I'm not holding grudges, just want the answer to be the best it can be.)
I'm pondering about adding some more APRS questions, like about the frequencies used worldwide, or about whyWIDEn-N is the default path, but both of them turn up pretty good results in Google - any strong opinions on that?
Also, what about gear-specific questions? My Kenwood D710 fan is noisy, turning up on every APRS beacon sent, but I feel like asking for a mod/howto to fix that is off-topic.
Obviously a question like "where can I buy X" is not on topic, but there is a valid question right now of chinese-brand vs established-brand HTs. This is more of a continuum than an easy boundary line, so where should the line be drawn? Some examples:
Requests for specific product suggestions...
^^^ I took the answer here to mean that asking about specific things in my environment are off topic - for instance, I don't know what antenna I will buy for my car
@Dan I think that question is related to "product A vs. product B", because both products would become obsolete over the years. It is probably not too much of a stretch to conclude that questions about "product A" specific issues would become obsolete as well, and thus are off-topic.
@Dan Yes, "given equipment X, how do I do Y?" are generally on-topic. I would suggest trying to word them fairly broadly, so that answers can be useful beyond the specific question.
@ge0rg While obviously the specific steps are going to be unique to the particular piece of equipment you are working with, I don't see any real reason why such a question would be off topic. But the only way to know for sure is probably to see the question.
@MichaelKjörling "The fan in the Kenwood D710 mobile radio is turning on on every transmission, including APRS beacons. This happens even when there is no thermal need for spinning it, and is annoying in a quiet shack (as opposed to under the car seat). Is there a way to turn the fan off / make it temperature dependant / replace it with a quieter one?"
@ge0rg Definitely sounds like a good question to me. It's clear what you are trying to achieve, it's answerable, and answers can be judged on their relevance to the question as asked. I'd probably write "how do I disable this / make it ..." but that's just a preference of mine.
Yeah. As a general rule of thumb, I would say that it's okay to ask about a specific model of device; don't worry that "eventually that device will be obsolete"
I mean, eventually it's likely that people will move on from Python in 50 years; that doesn't mean SO doesn't allow Python questions
Time obsolecence is the least of our worries, as long as the timeframe is > a year or so
@Dan - btw, a little birdie told me that MathJax was enabled on Ham.SE about an hour ago
Legend
$c$ = velocity of propogation = speed of light (299,792,458 meters/second)
$f$ = frequency
$\lambda $ = wavelength
Formulas
The basic formula for calculating wavelength is:
\begin{equation}
\lambda = \frac{c}{f}
\end{equation}
To make the math simpler, frequency ($f$) is expressed i...
The fan in the Kenwood D710 mobile radio is turning on on every transmission, including the periodic APRS beacons. This happens even when there is no actual need for spinning it, and is very annoying in a quiet shack (as opposed to under the car seat).
Is there a way to disable the fan or make i...
What is the best way to handle tag subsets, i.e. aprs is a subset of packet is a subset of digital. Should all three be tagged on aprs questions, or is there some way to let SE know that all aprs questions are also packet and digital?
I got started on the answer to ham.stackexchange.com/questions/316/… but someone ought to finish it; I'm not quite up to converting the more complex formulas into LaTeX right now.
@ge0rg I don't think there is a way (or SuperUser wouldn't need windows for the windows-7 questions...)
@Amber ah, interesting opinion. I was thinking in the way of browsing the site by tags, looking for interesting things that might be related to the topic of interest.
Obviously a question like "where can I buy X" is not on topic, but there is a valid question right now of chinese-brand vs established-brand HTs. This is more of a continuum than an easy boundary line, so where should the line be drawn? Some examples:
Requests for specific product suggestions...
Legend
$c$ = velocity of propogation = speed of light (299,792,458 meters/second)
$f$ = frequency
$\lambda $ = wavelength
Formulas
The basic formula for calculating wavelength is:
\begin{equation}
\lambda = \frac{c}{f}
\end{equation}
To make the math simpler, frequency ($f$) is expressed i...
