Subject:  Packet Operating Guidelines

Greetings fellow packet users and thank you for reading this message.
I have composed just a few guidelines that will help even the most
experienced user of packet with courteous tranmissions, and still
have fun at the same time.  The bottom line is that these are just
suggestions and not "Rules!"  Try them for a bit, if you like them,
keep them..they're free and that is the best part!

1.    When connecting to a station make sure your signal is strong
with good audio.  This doesn't mean that you have to buy an amplifier
that puts out 100 watts.  A five watt signal from a properly installed
antenna will do fine and will prevent unecessary acks from your
packet station.

2.    Get to know your local SSID addresses especially those of a
pbbs and personal maildrops.  If you see a friend of yours in a
local pbbs, try not to connect with him for idle chit-chat.  Most
likely the frequency is going to busy and unecessary traffic will
just slow transmissions even more.  Wait till they are finished and
go to a chat node or even better a quiet simplex data frequency.
Check your local band plan in your repeater directories.

3.    Find out from the pbbs sysop if the system is a multi-user
service.  If it's not...keep your file download and connect time
short.  This will allow other users a chance to use the board.
Also, most sysops dont have mega mega space on their hard drives,
so kill all messages that are sent to you after reading them.
Please remember that your sysop has a lot of time and equipment
tied up into this service so please be courteous to them too!!!

4.    When sending a message concerning items for sale, please
keep them to items that belong in a ham shack.  We dont want
another episode like the 900 numbers to re-occur.  If you have
a pocket knife for sale, just because it's great for cutting
coax, that doesn't make it an amateur related item.  Your not
dummy's ...so you know what is excepted and what is not,
if you have any doubt ask your sysop!

5.    Nodes are a very useful however, they can create bedlum
on the frequency if a user digi's off it to connect with
a local bbs.  Remember the key is to be courteous...this is not
hooray for me and the heck with you hobby!

6.    If you are engaged in a chat on a node or direct try not
to yell (the use of capital letters! )   Now before that I get
a mass of irate messages back, the key word in this is TRY. If
you have a terminal that only has caps, or your using a small
screen and you have a difficult time seeing, buy all means
use them.  If you have an AEA controller, the late models have
a command call CAS which will allow incoming text to be in caps.