Topband: THE ITINERANT 160 METER ANTENNA PROJECT

[Tom W8JI]

>
> It is impossible to know the basis for his errors in this case. But Bill's 
> contributions to amateur radio were vast and valuable and greatly 
> overshadow this one slip-up.

I don't think any anyone with an experimentation (Edisonian), engineering, 
or science background would assume a few errors (or even a few dozen errors) 
automatically means we can't trust anything an author says, or assume value 
of overall contributions are diminished from a few mistakes, or even several 
mistakes. That's more what those who think in terms of everything being 
either all correct or all wrong, do. That's for religion or politics, not 
science.

We should be able to freely discuss and correct errors in a nice 
non-personal way, and not assume pointing out an error is the same as 
insulting someone's mother, sister, character, or value.

Books and publications without proper technical review process and error 
correction are the real problem, not the overall value of the overall 
contribution.

The ARRL Handbooks have very few mistakes because they have a good review 
process. Not because of any difference in author quality. The review process 
is key.

73 Tom