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G4EBT > PACKET 16.07.08 15:56l 160 Lines 5857 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : D78437G4EBT
Read: GUEST
Subj: Re:Packet Ponderings - 'FCR QRT
Path: IZ3LSV<IK2XDE<DB0RES<DB0GOS<ON0AR<GB7FCR
Sent: 080716/1441Z @:GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU #:9824 [Blackpool] FBB-7.03a $:D78437G4E
From: G4EBT@GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU
To : PACKET@WW
Me again.
I though Trev was closing down 'FCR last weekend, but he's e-mailed me to
say he's to stay open until Nov, and might even be persuaded to stay open
a little longer if traffic picks up, which seems unlikely, but who knows.
I hadn't appreciated just how important GB7FCR is to the UK packet network
till Trevor explained.
Sadly, closure will adversely affect GB7SAN in Scotland as all the mail
for Scotland is sent to/from them via e-mail every day from GB7FCR. Also
GB7HVU over in Blackburn will lose his only link to the packet network.
The sysop at GB7HVU has no other BBS that he can connect to via RF and
doesn't have internet for the BBS, so he'll also have to close down.
Then there's the effect on packet as a whole.
The personal mail messages will be badly affected as Trevor has direct
links to Germany/Denmark/Holland/USA/Australia/Canada/South Africa, and
a lot of personal mail is routed via GB7FCR.
There used to be several BBSs in Trevor's part of the world - the
North-West coast of England - GB7BOB, GB7FYL, GB7CRV, GB7FUR, GB7OAR,
GB7HUT, GB7POL, and GB7PAR.
All QRT.
Same over here in the East.
In 2002 GB7GBY at Grimsby and GB7WRG at Wakefield closed, along with a
node at Swanland to the West of Hull to get over the Wolds, cutting off
GH7HUL at Hull from routes to the South and the West.
Then a node at Driffield to the North closed cutting off routes to the
North. To the East, it's the North Sea, so no joy there.
The sysop at Hull - a BBC trained engineer who maintains commercial radio
stations across the country, didn't want to use internet to link his BBS
to the network.
In any event, users had declined from a peak of over 200 in 1993 to only a
dozen or so by 2002, with only myself writing bulls regularly, so he was
going to shut up shop anyway.
GB7FCR is the last in the area and been on-air/online - longer than any of
the other BBSs that used to be around in that area, so it's the end of an
era and down to Trevor to put the lights out when he leaves, because
there's no one else to take over.
It's a pity that users and traffic have diminished to such a degree that
BBSs are shutting up shop, but it was always on the cards.
Some who've been at it for years have never quite made a successful
transition from voice to text modes and I doubt they ever will. There's
rather more to packet than installing Winpack and clattering away.
Others seem to come on for little more than engaging in the "sport" of
trolling. They didn't seem quite so noticeable when traffic was high.
It's bizarre that otherwise sane people who don't have a problem
with face-to-face contacts, just don't, won't or can't, adapt to
"inter-packet-net", which is what it now is.
Unable to grasp and cope with the essential differences from being on-air:
Most aspects of an on-air QSO are completely irrelevant to packet.
Equipment used, signal strength and quality, QRM, QSB, location, antenna,
weather, a few personal details maybe, QSL info. All of no consequence to
packet.
To use packet properly requires that we recognise and cope with a range of
aspects, not least of which is that most people's written skills are not
as well developed as their verbal skills, and we should allow for that.
There are generational and societal differences, different backgrounds and
educational attainment, varying levels of literacy, no voice intonation,
no spontaneity, no body language, no opportunity to interject, easy to
misunderstand the nuances, no eye contact, time to brood over things and
build up a head of steam.
A big plus point of packet is that it's not in real time so we can always
have a "contact". We can download, read and write stuff offline to suit
our own timetable.
the downside is that it's not civilised and experience suggests it's never
going to be. That's why internet forums have terms of acceptable use and
moderation and a complete absence of hassle.
People are able to make their point quietly and clearly, as they must.
If others disagree, they must do so without being disagreeable.
Anything which comes close to personal attacks simply doesn't get posted
and the miscreant is turfed off. The trolls are denied their oxygen, so
suffocate and die.
Hence, the forums are bursting at the seams, in marked contrast to the
no-go unmoderated newsgroups which are just snakepits.
Some on here say we should avoid sensitive topics. I disagree - it's a
dreadful indictment against amateur radio if we have to admit that we are
so bigoted that we can't discuss sensitive subjects in a sensible way in a
troubled world.
No-one needs to get involved in anything they don't wish to - the sender
and topic is clear from the header.
As a footnote, who'd have thought the arch nemesis of LLLers a few years
ago would become an LLLer himself, telnetting to a different continent?
What a fall from grace:-)
From 2002:
>Those firmly entrenched LAND LINE LIDS think they're God's gift to packet
>and can do no wrong. I will neither tolerate land line lids, nor will I
>leave. LIVE WITH IT!
Who was that man?
Clue from Neil Diamond "I Am I Said":
Clip:
New York's home but it ain't mine no more.
[No it ain't - Home, as in "home BBS", isn't even in
the Big Apple - it's Kempsey, in the Lucky Country:-)
I am I said
To no one there,
And no one heard at all not even
the chair...
Leaving me lonely still
End clip.
And lo, it was prophesised by the LLLers to the naysayers:
"To me belongeth vengeance and recompense; their foot shall slide in due
time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall
come upon them make haste".
(Deuteronomy 32/35 KJV)
Best wishes
David, G4EBT @ GB7FCR
Cottingham, East Yorkshire.
Message timed: 00:41 on 2008-Jul-16
Message sent using WinPack-Telnet V6.70
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