Forum FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions)

Q1. I'm not a member of the Lynchburg Amateur Radio Club, can I join the club lists?

A1. Of course you can join the list. I (Mark N4KSS) own the forums on my domain and provide them free to the club and anyone who wish to be a part of the lists and contributeto the forums. If I don't know you, or recognize your email address, I may ask you to explain who you are. This provides protection from spammers joining the lists and spamming the whole group.

Q2. How do I know which lists I am on?

A2. Pretty simple. Using the email address that you are subscribed with, send an email to leave the subject of the email blank. In the body of the message, type which youremail@address.com being the address that you originally subscribed to the list with. Example: To: Subject: Body: which youremail@address.com You should get a return email within a few minutes that tells you which lists you are already a member of. If you have a signature in your email messages the system will look at each line as if it is a command so turning off signatures for this is nice but not necessary.

Q3. I thought I was a member of some of your forums but I haven't received any emails from them in a long time, what gives?

A3. Sometimes mailboxes get full or spam filters are set to the point that bounce emails from the forums. When these bounces occur, I usually log it as a bounce and wait to see if any more bounces occur. Once 3 bounces have occurred, I automatically delete the address from my forum. If I can get an email through, I will try to notify the person who's emails are bouncing but often times this is the only address I have and of course it is bouncing so I just have to delete them. If I get an auto-responder, such as a vacation notice that goes to the forum, I will immediately delete the address from the forum as this can create an email loop and I have to stop that quickly.

Q4. What is considered off topic?

A4. That all depends on the forum but it is really quite simple. First be sure that the forum isn't a read only forum. I only have 2 read only forums aresalert and newsletter. The aresalert is only for ARES officials to post alerts on. Newsletter is only for me to post the monthly newsletter notifications. I have combined the regular ares forum with the larc forum so not only ares is appropriate on this forum but anything ham radio related is appropriate. You can even give prices if you have ham gear to sell. I don't mind as long as you don't make a full time job selling on my forum. Obviously, if it isn't ham radio or ares related or doesn't have anything to do with the topic of the forum, then it is off topic.

Q5. How do I unsubscribe from the forums?

A5. The best way to unsubscribe is to email me at and just tell me what email address you are subscribed under and which list you would like to be unsubscribed from. I can't unsubscribe you if I don't know what address to remove. Many people have addresses that don't tell me who they are. If you are not sure which forums you are a member of refer to Q2 above.

Q6. How come my posts do not go through? I know I am subscribed to the forum.

A6. There are several things that could cause this. The most often is when someone subscribes with one address but uses a different return address. An example is if you subscribed as yourname@nospam.com, which may be your regular email address but you use a return address of n0spam@arrl.net. When you post to the forum, it sees you as n0spam@arrl.net and says you do not belong to the forum. This would explain why you see posts to the forum but cannot post to the forum. Other reasons could be very large emails or oversized headers. My spam filters prevent multiple email headers. I do not know how many addresses are allowed but one or two seem to pass but if you email several people along with including the forum address, the filter will reject the email. It is poor email etiquette to include multiple recipients without hiding their addresses in a BCC. Refer to http://www.n4kss.net/forward.html for more information.