Hardware topics home

[W2PA]

Should we have a topic grouping around the various hardware models? Right now I don't see a place for questions about a specific Apache model, or OpenSDR board.

There is a firmware group with a topic around each hardware platform. There is also a Topic group called Hardware & Software Interfacing. I interpret that to mean topics around interfacing hardware with software. Or should I have more properly interpreted it as meaning topics around hardware, and topics around interfacing hardware with software? The parsing of the heading isn't obvious.

[w-u-2-o]

Hi Chris,

It was a very difficult decision on how to best organize the forum. One way to do it would be to make a sub-forum titled for each model radio, as you suggest. However, if the forum was to be organized like that, then questions and discussions would be fragmented and substantially duplicated across all of those radio-centric sub-forums. For instance, interfacing microphones is essentially identical on all radios. Using diversity is essentially identical on all radios that have that capability. PowerSDR, and all other available clients, work nearly identically across all radios. To use examples you would be very familiar with, MIDI and CTUN in PowerSDR works the same on all radios.

Therefore, in order to avoid seeing the same questions and discussions duplicated across no less than seven separate forums, one for each model from the 10 to the 8000, and everything in between, the forum was organized to be software-centric and interface-centric. For example if you've got a problem with attaching a microphone--post in the "Microphones, Speakers and Audio Hardware" sub-forum. Sure, there might be some minor differences between radios with respect to connectors, etc., but this approach keeps the duplication and diffusion of topics down to a dull roar.

For those occasional cases where somebody posts something in the wrong forum, I or another moderator can easily move the thread. This allows careful curation of the knowledge-base in a way that provides forum users an easy way to find similar topics all in one place. This is the big advantage of forums over mailing lists or Yahoo groups.

Your interpretation of what "Hardware & Software Interfacing" means is not correct, BTW. Perhaps that overarching category needs to be renamed. However, if you look at the sub-forums in that category, I would hope that their individual meanings are clear.

Thanks & 73,

Scott

[W2PA]

Ok, that makes sense, Scott.

So then my question is: where in the forum is the proper place to ask a question about a radio itself (i.e. the hardware) - a question having nothing to do with interfacing to anything else?

[w-u-2-o]

Chris,

If the question doesn't fit neatly into an existing sub-forum, and there will occasionally be such questions, of course, put it in the "Everything else" sub-forum.

73!

Scott