Dot your i's and cross your t's

This morning I read the latest entry on G4ILO's blog entitled, "A tale of two websites". This ought to be required reading for anyone maintaining a blog, whether ham radio-related or otherwise.

Without giving away the details of what Julian writes about, he outlines how it appears that one website has "lifted" their design from another website. He goes on to correctly point out that many bloggers are using images and text in their blogs obtained from other sources without permission.

A couple of months ago I was searching for information on 80 meter antennas and one of the search links took me to AE5X's website/blog. John had a nice write-up about his experiences using a simple 80 meter dipole and some information about his station. After reading his entry I continued to search and stumbled across another link to a ham blog in Ireland. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that this fellow (who I won't name) had the EXACT SAME write-up, only with certain points changed to reflect his own station and setup. He literally substituted his station information but left the other text exactly as John had written it. As if HE was the person who authored it in the first place! I wrote John a note and told him. He thanked me and said that he would try to contact this person and see what the story was.

I often wonder about the motives of some bloggers who merely regurgitate information that's available from other websites, which are often the actual sources. Is it really necessary to post the results of past contests when that information is available for everyone on the sponsor's site? Is it really necessary to post the details of upcoming contests or DXpeditions when there are half a dozen sites devoted to those subjects and are far more "in the know" than the blogger could ever be?

Another example is a blogger who seems to have self-appointed himself "mission control" for the ham radio-related activities for the aid going to Haiti. I'm sure he feels that his efforts are noble and worthwhile, but in reality he's merely cutting and pasting information from official and non-official sources and has no way of verifying any of it. In a recent entry he even goes as far as to admit that the information that's he's already posted seems to be in conflict with information from other sources and now he doesn't really know what's going on now. Really?

Maybe some of this is a reflection of how news in general seems to work nowadays. Seems that even major news outlets are able to post rumors and speculation and get three or four shots at getting the story correct without any accountability.

Regardless, Julian is right. Even though we're not journalists we have a responsibility to give credit to sources when we post information on our blogs and to not act as if we are responsible for the information, when, in fact, we had nothing to do with it.

Shooting fish in a barrel

I read a lot of blogs that don't appear on my favorite blog list. I need to take time and update my list as some of those listed don't appear to be active anymore. I mean well, but time slips away and then there's the endless distractions, holidays...ok, I'm making excuses.

The fact is, I read a number of blogs almost daily that I don't have links to. I get to them through links on other sites. But I'm always grateful when someone links to me, so I should be sure and return the gesture if I find their blog interesting.

But I don't always read a person's blog because I agree with everything they write. Often I'll strongly disagree with a point that he or she has made, but that doesn't mean that I don't like their blog or agree with the other 90% of what they write.

Case in point, a blog that I follow regularly which doesn't appear on my list is one written by a fellow who is deep into Software Defined Radio (SDR). I find this interesting. I've mulled over the possibility of buying an SDR radio one day, although not any time soon. There's a number of things that need to come first before I think about another radio. Anyway, I enjoy reading this guy's blog and I've learned a lot from him, not only about SDR but also about operating and taking a different view towards things. Through his entries, I feel that I've gained a pretty good understanding of SDR.

The other day, however, I ran across an entry he'd made in which he described a recent sitation where he'd heard a rare DX station on 80 meters and due to the fact that he'd bought a new instant-on amplifier (to go along with his 3 other amplifiers - does one guy really need 4 amplifiers??) he'd dropped his call in, had the station come back to him immediately, worked him, and said the entire process took, maybe, 30 seconds.

Then he said, "This is how man was meant to live!".

Something about that struck me wrong. I think we've all wondered what it would be like to just flip on the radio, have DX come pouring in, and just take our pick. Toss out our call, have them come back, log them, chalk up another one.

But do we REALLY want it to be that easy? Where's the challenge? Where's the strategy? What's the point? Like shooting fish in a barrel.

Might even get boring.

Would you feel better working a rare DX station in one call with the full legal limit, or running 100 watts (or QRP even) with compromised antennas, working at it and finally nabbing them? Maybe this guy has done all of that and now he has the ability to "shoot the fish", so why not? I'm not calling him to task for doing that, but I'm disagreeing with his statement.

I just don't think that it would be much fun. I still like his blog, though, and I'll definitely keep reading it. :)