Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Amateur radio

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This article, image, template, or category is part of WikiProject Amateur radio, which is an attempt to better organize and unify articles relating to Amateur radio technology, organizations, and activities. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

Contents

[edit] Project proposal introduction

Moved from original proposal page.

This is a proposed start point for WikiProject Amateur radio.

The goal of this WikiProject will be to improve Amateur radio related articles and categorization (Category:Amateur radio and its subs). Currently there is a lack of coordination on this topic which has led to some poorly written articles. One which stands out is an earlier version of D-STAR, which required a total rewrite. I've also noticed that many notable Amateur radio related compaines are missing. There are now stubs available for MFJ Enterprises and Hy-Gain, but there are serveral more to go and a lot of expansion/improvement to be done on those already existing.

I'll start building this page out to standard Wikipedia:WikiProject format. If enough people are interested then this page can be moved over to the main Wikipedia namespace. Anyone interested? --StuffOfInterest 18:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments from project proposal

This was imported from the list of proposed projects for further discussion.

Description: The goal of this WikiProject will be to improve Amateur radio related articles and categorization (Category:Amateur radio and its subs).

Temporary project page: User:StuffOfInterest/WikiProject Amateur radio

User: StuffOfInterest 18:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name):

  • — xaosflux Talk (May want to expand this to include all "personal radio" as well <e.g. GMRS, FRS, CB> and not just the "amateur" bands.) 20:00, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
  • User:M0ffxI second the above. I probably can't contribute much to the project since I'm not a particularly experience ham, but I might take a look over the various articles. Also I might start an article on the Cambridge University Wireless Society at some point.
  • ChardingLLNL 02:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC) GGMRS and FRS are governed by a different part of the FCC regulations, and the licensing requirements are totally different - FRS requires no license, and GMRS only requires filling out an applications and sending the FCC $70.00, so I assert that they should be in separate articles. Also, ham radio experimenters have made significant contributions to communications art, science, and engineering. FRS and GMRS are end user services and do not lend themselves to experimentation.
  • M0RHI | Talk to me - I have plenty of time on my hands, and as the University of St Andrews does not have a wireless society, despite my efforts, this means that while I'm at university, I'll have plenty of time to edit articles, and help them along their way! I particularly contest, so I'm happy to help out there. Edit: Keep this to amateur radio, it would be wrong to infer false expertise which we are not licensed for (CB etc), and will allow us to exercise our expertise to the best possible usage
  • Peter Ellis/talk: I'll always look for Amateur Radio matters among my suite of subjects. Getting over into GMRS, FRS, CB might be a stretch. Let's develop a topic/subject/wanted -page list and go from there; at least establish pages and let them fill out.
  • Mysid: A great thing to have. The amateur radio related articles are, in my opinion, in a bad shape here. I've been expanding and improving some of them. I'm an occasional DX listener myself.
  • Pcbene (KB1HMF): I disagree with the inclusion of FRS/GMRS/CB (see below), but I think a collection of Amateur Radio pages would be a valuable resource on Wikipedia.

Comments:

  • I'm going to go ahead and give it until tomorrow to see if anyone else feels like adding an endorsement here. With the four who signed here, and one more who signed up on the temporary project page, I believe we meet the minimum requirement. I'm sure a few more could be rounded up, but I hate to go and spam a bunch more pages (sorry to anyone who was already annoyed by my mass posting). Thanks to those who have expressed interest so far! --StuffOfInterest 23:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Just a follow-up note. Now that the project is active, there is no need to add your name to this interest section. If you think the project is worthwhile, please consider adding yourself to the member list on the main project page. Thanks. --StuffOfInterest 13:17, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Should we expand scope?

Well, the project is less than five minutes old and there is already a new item of business. xaosflux proposed expanding the project to cover GMRS, FRS, CB, and any related "personal" radio services. People involved with Amateur radio are probably best qualified to help on those articles short of bringing in professional radio engineers so I can see the logic.

At this point, I can see three ways to go on this:

  1. Do nothing, let the other servies work on their own for fall under some sort of "WikiProject Personal radio".
  2. Expand the scope of this project to include peronal radio.
  3. Don't expand the scope, but take the other articles under a sort of stewardship where we list and try and improve these articles without explicitly including them in the project.

Any ideas? --StuffOfInterest 12:17, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe Amateur Radio is a very unique practice, different from GMRS, CB and FRS. While GMRS, CB, and FRS are heavily regulated by the FCC, require little technical skill to operate, and have limited capabilities, Ham Radio is a very technical hobby with much more freedom (and bandwidth) given to it. While CB and GMRS simply require an application for a license, Ham Radio requires studying and testing, and issuance of call signs. In addition, Ham Radio offers an infinite potential, including the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) involved in emergency communications (EMCOMM), opportunities for international goodwill, potential for astromical research, ect. In short, Ham Radio is attributed to an international technical community, while GMRS, CB, and FRS simply provide "Walkie-Talkie" capability. For these reasons, I think WikiProject Amateur Radio should remain seperate from family radio services. -- Pcbene 05:02, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Better template graphic

Does anyone have an idea for a better graphic to use on the project template? The current one gets under my skin. It looks like, and probably is, a generic home table-top receiver and not something you would expect to represent Amateur radio. I'd love to use the IARU logo (currently busted), but unfortunately it won't qualify under fair use. Something else would be most welcome. Thanks. --StuffOfInterest 16:15, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiCast

Hi, As someone connected with the WikiCast project I felt your wikiproject might be intrested in contributing.

WikiCast is a net radio station for 'free' content.

It's wiki is at : http://wiki.epstone.net/wikicast/Main_Page

It needs content, and I was wondering if you had any suggestions or contributions?

ShakespeareFan00 18:55, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Greetings

I noticed in StuffOfInterest's RfA that he started this WikiProject, so I thought I'd join in. I just created a very basic article for the late 73 magazine, and gave it an infobox and graphic. Check it out and let me know what you think. --Aaron 00:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Aaron, welcome to the project. And thanks for the support vote over at RfA! The article looks like a great start. I'd heard about 73 before but didn't know about its ties to my lamented, retired Byte magazine. --StuffOfInterest 11:50, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redlinked articles

I just noticed that a bunch of the articles listed on the project page have recently gone redlinked. It looks to be mostly a combination of prod and speedy deletion. Someone with admin rights will need to look at the deleted edits to see if anyting from the articles is worth salvaging. In some cases any worthwhile content can be merged into other articles (even "list of" type articles). For others we may want to go to WP:DRV to try and bring the entire article back. For a few, such as MFJ Enterprises, talking with those involved in the earlier deletion may help reach agreement on bringing them back. Please don't remove the redlinks off of the project page, but consider adding annotations to the list regarding why and when they were deleted. This will help in deciding what to do. Thanks. --StuffOfInterest 18:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

MFJ was a {{prod}}, so all we have to do to get it back is ask for it. --Aaron 18:52, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes. Still, I've left a note with the person who put the prod tag on to see what it will take to convince him of the notability. He/she nominated it based on WP:CORP. As I originally created the article, I won't do the undelete myself but will ask another admin to later. My hope is to convince the nominator that it is worthy or find out what it would take to clarify the notability so the article doesn't end up right over on WP:AfD after being restored. --StuffOfInterest 18:55, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I was in the middle of rewriting my comment to read as follows when you slipped in with a response: "MFJ was a {{prod}}, so all you have to do, being an admin and all (heh heh), is restore it and put an {{oldprod}} tag on it (per WP:PROD#Contesting_after_deletion)." I'll keep an eye on the page and try to pump up its notability if/when it's restored. --Aaron 18:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm going to leave a note for an admin who I know is a HAM asking him to undelete it. I've annotated all of the deleted articles on the project page. It looks like most of them were tagged as CSD A7 by one person on the 11th. I'm guessing he either went through one of the categories or the project page to find the articles as there is no way he would have just run across them. To tell the truth, for most of them, there probably isn't much worth saving as some were just one or two lines and an external link. A "list of" can probably cover everything easy enough. --StuffOfInterest 19:09, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
What is it with this new deletion policy or something, these pages are dropping like flies, no explination, nothing... some of them actaully have content. WHo do I yell at... these pages are a part of projects and then they just disappear. This has got to stop. I thought we had a nomination process for stuf fliek this! It was one thing when it was pages with just links, now its getting draconian Anonym1ty 20:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Again I ask what is it with the deletion policy. The way the CSD A7 is being used here is a load of horse manure. I have read What Wikipedia is and is not, I have read policies. I do not agree with the speedy part of these deletions. Perhaps the article does indeed need to go, but what's wrong with the normal process? I can only surmise that some small group of admins is getting some kinda rise over just deleting articles. I mean shortly after the articles become part of this project, then they get wiped out indiscriminately? I mean wouldn't the very fact they were just recently added to a project say something about it???? It's part of a project! These articles are nominated and then deleted faster than I can even see a notice! I have almost all of them in my watch list... and once they're deleted, Nothing shows up in the watch list. Do they deserve to be deleted? Maybe... I might even say probably, but this is just plain crazy! I work for a living and it may take as many as three days for me to check my watch list... these articles are nominated and gone in an hour I'm calling

shenanigans!!!!!! Anonym1ty 21:04, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

(reset indent) I'm betting that someone ran across the project and just started walking articles. Either that, or they found the list of HAM organizations. A7 does get overused at times. For spammy articles it works but for general organizations it seems a bit excessive at times. On the flip side, a lot of the articles deleted were just one or two line stubs which could have had just as much detail on their entry in "List of..." article. MFJ bugged me a bit, but I was able to dig up a few references to show notability and it hasn't been touched since. That is the key, any new article really should have at least one reference and make a statement up front for some claim of notability. At that point the CSD won't work anymore and it will have to go through a full AfD which gives us a much better opportunity to defend the article.

I have somewhere around 500 articles on my watch list right now, so I don't always catch when someone puts a PROD or CSD tag on one of them. CSD is really bad because depending on the backlog (or lack of) it can go on the list and be deleted in just a couple of minutes. The key is to have more eyes watching the articles. The more you (and others) can carry on your watch list the better chance we have of spotting deletion attempts. --StuffOfInterest 14:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project Directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:

  • User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory 2,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Philosophy and religion Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Sports Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory/United States, (note: This page will be retitled to more accurately reflect its contents)
  • User:Badbilltucker/History and society directory, and
  • User:Badbilltucker/Science directory

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:56, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now put the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 00:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Radio

Anyone here interested in helping start a wikiproject radio, since there is not even a generic wikiproject for radio? This project would become either descendent wikiproject or possibly be merged into the main project. If interested, please see the proposal. --PhantomS 03:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References for South Jersey Radio Association?

South Jersey Radio Association just went up for proposed deletion. The problem with the article is that there's no independent source to back up the assertion that it's the oldest extant amateur club. Google has not been useful. Has anybody got a newspaper clipping, ARRL write-up, etc. that could help the article out? 73 —C.Fred (talk) 22:40, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I've added what I could come up with, however I am not a member of that organization. I contacted them to see if they could help point us in the right direction. Anonym1ty 18:44, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Parent project

What is your opinion regarding how this project should be related to WikiProject Telecommunications. Can the Amateur radio WikiProject be defined as a descendant project to Telecommunications, and Telecommunications as its parent? Mange01 17:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Telecommunications seems rather generic. IMHO, there should be a parent radio wikiproject. --PhantomS 17:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes. But until it exists, can Telecom be parent? Many wireless issues are discussed in the telecom project. Mange01 17:24, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
In all honesty, I'd rather see something like WikiProject Radio be a parent as it is more of a direct line up from Amateur radio. Unfortunately, that project is currently geared towards radio stations rather than radio technology. Telecommunications has a lot of overlap with Amateur radio but I'm not sure if you could consider it a direct line parent. More like a first cousin. :) --StuffOfInterest 19:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
WikiProject Radio has been created. Please sign up if interested. --PhantomS 17:19, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Band plan colors

There is a discussion going on regarding charts for band plans. I recently made the folowing post:

"Standardizing the color codes is important. As long as it is consistent I'm not too worried. Since the US appears to be moving from mode to bandwidth allocation (if ARRL gets its way) we'll probably need colors (or patterns) for both. I would actually suggest that we come up with a standard set of colors to be used across all of the HAM articles. The color/pattern settings could be built into a collection of templates so that if we decide to change a color later it can be modified in one place and pushed across all articles. Something similiar was done at Wikipedia:WikiProject Washington Metro to standardize line colors across articles. Having the colors/patterns standardized will help if we start pushing some national band plans into separate articles later."

Perhaps we should look at coming up with a standard set of colors and patterns to represent emission modes as well as bandwidth usage. With it encoded into templates we can give all of the HAM articles a more consistent look. Any suggestions or ideas for implementation? --StuffOfInterest 13:35, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I've done a little more research on this, and here is how I think it could work.
First, you put the style information in a template. For SSB, a template named "Template:HAM BS SSB" could conain:
style="background-color: blue"
To use that template in a table with a bar covering two columns, you would then enter:
| colspan=2 {{HAM BS SSB}} |
The above would create a blue bar spanning two columns. In the future, if a decision is made to change the color or add style such as hashing for SSB all we have to do is change one template and the style will propagate across all articles. --StuffOfInterest 14:54, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:18, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Notability

Articles about Amateur radio clubs have been being deleted quite frequently.

It may be the best idea for us at WP:HAM to define more carefully what constitutes the exact requirements for us to keep or delete articles. Then list them and include them in Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Precedents.

What makes an Amateur radio club notable? In general notability in organizations requires organizations to do something on a national or international scale. Well this is finely vague enough for Amateur radio clubs... But If a club maintains a station, then that can be considered international scope of activities? On the other hand Radio stations get wikipedia articles all the time, why not ham stations? Ok.. Maybe not every licensed ham gets an article. But clubs maintaining stations are important.

What about clubs that work with disaster relief agencies? Red Cross, Salvation Army, NWS/NOAA, FEMA?

ARRL affiliated clubs are not merely chapters of the ARRL but what about ARES groups? they might be considered just that.

Inclusion in Third party records/articles and the like? Then every ham club that has anything counts?

What about age of a club? You have to admit older clubs are likely to be more notable than new ones... but you could argue that brand new contest clubs may be more active.

We should address this and come up with guidelines. Anonym1ty 18:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Anonym1ty (talk • contribs) 18:24, 22 January 2007 (UTC). --gee thanx Mr. Bot... it was only 10 seconds since I hit save instead of preview!!!Anonym1ty 18:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Merely maintaining an HF station is not enough to establish national or international scope. The organization must act nationally or internationally. Otherwise, we wind up listing every local ham club, and that's going to be counterproductive. I think that we should be careful about listing local (or even state) organizations, lest we generate a reputation for generating articles that don't survive AfD - which will make it that much harder to get the worthy oones through the process.
No slight intended to what may well be a fine organization, but does Wikipedia - a resource for all, worldwide - really need the history and list of officers for the Lakeshore Repeater Association? If it does, why not every repeater group in the country? Where does it stop?
The same goes for Gwinnett ARES. I have no opinion about the group itself, but is it notable enough to rate its own separate article? If so, why not every other local ARES organization out there?
Radio stations get articles because they're by their very nature broadcast operations, designed to appeal to the public. Ham stations - even club operations - are not. The average resident of Austin is much more likely to hear about, and tune into, KUT than he is N5XU.
We should be concentrating on those articles that are of use to a wide spectrum of users. Local ham clubs simply aren't. They might well belong in a ham radio wiki, but not on Wikipedia. -- Jay Maynard 02:33, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
But the average SWL in Poland, Serbia, South Africa would be more interested in finding out about WX4NET then WRJN. There is an inherent value to active Amateur radio club stations. Anonym1ty 16:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why just one radio article?

I tagged Yaesu ft-107m for speedy delete under WP:CSD#A7 because the article says nothing about why the radio is notable. There's a bigger problem, though: Are we planning to have entries for all, or substantially all, ham rigs ever built? If not, what criteria are we going to pick to list the ones we do want to write (and, probably, defend at AfD)? The FT-107M article was created by an anonymous user, and is very little more than a very broad overview of the radio's features that does not distinguish it from any other radio built in the last 20 years. If that's all it'll ever be, then why do we need an article at all? -- Jay Maynard 01:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

As I've mentioned in other places, I really dislike CSD in most cases. I'd much rather see content merged up to a parent level article. In this case, I think the Yaesu (brand) article can be extended to include tables for the different classes of radios. Those tables can have the essential information. The FT-107M article has some details such as mode which would be useful in such a table, which is why I would endorse a merge for an article like this. Another advantage to a merge is that it leaves behind a redirect to the merge destination. In this case someone searching on the FT-107M would end up in the Yeasu article.
Some radios are notable enough to probably warrant their own article. At the point where enough details are in the parent (company) article to build a stand-alone article, then it should be forked out. I do agree that many of the articles are too stubby to justify standing on their own. I've seen this happen on other topics. The Merlin (rocket engine) article, for an engine which has flown once for all of about 15 seconds, was forked into two model articles which only contained a few sentences each. I flagged those child articles with a merge and a multi-merge into tag on the parent. After a couple of weeks with no complaint it only took a few minutes to merge the content in via recommended procedure and convert the old stubs into redirects. No complaints, everybody happy. Doesn't this sound like a better way to avoid conflicts?
I'll go ahead and do the merge tagging for the FT-107M and FT-847. It is not intdended to short-circuit Anonym1ty's effort to improve the FT-107M article but can stand as a fall back position. If anyone runs across any more baby Yaesu articles out there they should feel free to merge tag them and add them onto the company article merge list. --StuffOfInterest 12:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I've started the merge process with tagging and opening a discussion here. --StuffOfInterest 12:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article deletions

I think we should stop blindly contesting every proposed deletion of an article relating to ham radio. An article about an average radio from the 1980s, in the absence of at least an attempt at comprehensive coverage of the manfacturer's whole line or all radios of that era, just makes us look like we're dedicated to sticking trivialities into the encyclopedia. We don't want that reputation. Don't believe me? Look at what's happening to the furry and webcomic communities: there are people out there who are making it their mission on Wikipedia to wipe anything in those categories out of the encyclopedia.

We can either contribute quality entries about truly notable subjects, or we can suffer the same fate. Which is it to be? -- Jay Maynard 16:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

See above section. --StuffOfInterest 13:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Get other hams involved

I think we should announce the existence of this project over the air. Well-written pages are a great way to educate people (hams and non-hams) about amateur radio. Perhaps people could exchange their writings over the air via Packet or another digital mode.

We should get a feature article submitted to the ARRL that explains Wikipedia, this project, and the benefits of having free (as is GNU Free Documentation License) information on amateur radio.

Also could we change the heading of the "XfD Articles" so that a non-Wikipedian could recognize what the section is about? Maybe "Discussions about articles for deletion." Then include a sentence or two about what we mean.

Erpingham 01:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

All good ideas! I see references to Wikipedia in QST on a regular basis so the HAM community is certainly aware that the encyclopedia is out there. Many (if not most) HAMs probably don't realize how much "expert" help the radio articles need. That is well illustrated in that only eight people have chosen to list themselves on the project members list.
As for an article to submit to QST, we can always start a sub-page for the project (such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Amateur radio/QST article draft) and build up the article there before submission.
Finally, on the section title, how about "Content deletion discussions"? --StuffOfInterest 11:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Another idea too...The Talk page on the Amateur radio article is probably due for some archiving. After it is archived, it might not be a bad idea to put something there (when it will be really noticeable) inviting people to join the project. Anonym1ty 20:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reformat of Amateur radio

I've reformatted the main article in hopes of increasing readability. A lot of detail was moved to sub-articles. -- LuckyLouie 08:16, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

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