Subj : Re: No More Long Posts
To   : FINNIGANN
From : Daryl Stout
Date : Sun Jul 17 2005 05:44 pm

  First off, I apologize for the long reply.

F>No one said that. it's the long wouting that was mentioned. It wasn't needed
 >to quote the entire thing for an atta boy at the end.

  That's the impression I got ("are you going to post ~600 line messages
again?"). I agree that quoting the entire deal just for a one line reply
is not good BBS etiquette.

F>Usually a small excerpt and the link will be all that is needed. Unless you
 >want to comment on things in that article.

  That's why I decided to mention the links that I did...and which are
again noted later in this message.

  The reason for the one long post is that I usually have to edit the
textfiles of the Amateur Radio Newsline, The ARRL Contesters Rate Sheet,
and The ARRL Letter, because the length of the lines are too wide for
BBS message posting. This means going through the entire messages, which
I agree can be quite lengthy, with all the articles. It took me nearly
15 minutes just to reformat this past weeks Newsline...then, I got
jumped on for the long post in this echo...and that has happened before
in other ham radio related echoes as well.

  As the daily newspaper or weekly magazine doesn't have just one
story...neither does The ARRL Letter, The ARRL Contesters Rate Sheet, or
The Amateur Radio Newsline.

  Otherwise, I would need to:

1) Go through the entire message first
2) See how many stories there are
3) Edit the entire deal for line length
4) Make x number of copies per story (15 stories means 15 separate msgs)
5) Mnually edit these
6) Set up and edit the batchfile with SMBUTIL to post x number of
messages.

  But, then I risk them being deleted for duplicate subjects...and that
for all the long bulletins. It seems to be more trouble than it is
worth, with possibly all the work for nothing.

  Also, I only have a certain length for the subject line in the batch
file with SMBUTIL. And again, the duplicate message deal either on here
or at systems down the line (I've had that happen NUMEROUS times before)
would zap one or more of the messages, then one reading it wouldn't get
the entire message.

F>Changing the subject line should keep that from happening such as

F>Part 1

  Tried that...same result. :(

  Under my old BBS software, GT Power, the duplicate message deal
counted the size of the message, and NOT the subject line. Even when I
was running GT...which did not zap stuff as duplicates...trying to gate
stuff over into FIDO or other areas had the same result...duplicate
messages being deleted, so I finally gave up.

  If folks want, I can TRY the splitting of these when they are issued,
but if it doesn't work, don't say I didn't warn you.

  Also, one can get more timely delivery of The ARRL Letter, the
Contesters Rate Sheet, or W1AW bulletins, by going to www.arrl.org on
the web, click on the TEXT ONLY link, look for the BULLETINS link, then
click on the desired item.

  If they want timely delivery of the Amateur Radio Newsline, they can
go to www.arnewsline.org on the web, and click on the link for the
current report.

  The actual day of the week issuance (actual time of release varies) of
these items are as follows (check websites for exceptions for holidays,
etc.):

ARRL Regular Bulletin -- as required
ARRL DX Bulletin -- every Thursday
ARRL Keplerian Elements -- every Tuesday and Friday
ARRL Propagation Bulletin -- every Friday
ARRL Satellite Bulletin -- as required
ARRL Extra Bulletin -- as required
ARRL Contesters Rate Sheet -- every other Wednesday
ARRL Letter -- every Friday
Amateur Radio Newsline -- every Friday

Daryl

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