Alan: 

I agree that this list has just as much non ham radio related postings as related and a few of us tried to either get individuals posting the non ham radio related stuff to kindly post it else where or go off list to no avail. 
Even the list owner got involved a little while ago and all but said he wasn't going to do anything about it, when there was a brief thread about starting up another list. For a time, us Mac users had these strange symbols accompanying our msgs, they went away and now they're back. 
Again we requested something be done to no avail. So like many of us, we just hit the delete key because of the subject line containing something of no interest, even though the body may or may not of contained material of interest. 
All in all though, I've gotten a valuable ham radio resource since I've been on this list off and on since 2001. I hope you'll continue to post as well because your one of the ones I've gotten valuable tips from. Both Steves, John Miller and a few others have been of value to me, not sure if I've been but I'll continue to post when I think it can help somebody on this list. 

73: 
Michael VO1AX