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Old 5th Dec 2005, 13:01
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PPRuNeaholic
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Question Is this for real?

I just received an e-mail titled "DOTARS study on changes to aerodrome procedures". It was allegedly sent by :-

Mike Smith
General Manager
National Airspace System Implementation Group
Department of Transport and Regional Services
Using the e-mail address :-

"Mike Smith" <[email protected]>

The text of this message is as follows :-

Dear Airspace User

On 24 November 2005 changes to procedures at non-towered aerodromes will become effective. We would appreciate it if you would help us to assess our training and education program by completing this five-minute survey.

Your responses will help us assess the effectiveness of the program and will also help shape future airspace training and education programs.

We hve engaged Australian Survey Research, an independent research organisation to collect and analyse the results. Your answers will remain confidential and at no stage will an individual respondent be identified in the summary report that we receive about the survey. If you request someone from DOTARS to contact you as part of your responses, Australian Survey Reseach will provide us your name and contact details in a separate file.

You will be able to see the results of the survey on the Airspace Reform website (www.dotars.gov.au/airspacereform) by mid December.

Please complete this questionnaire by close of business, Monday, 19 December 2005.

Before opening the questionnaire, please note:

- You can partially complete your questionnaire and return later as many times as you want within the survey period.

- After 180 minutes of inactivity your browser session will time-out. You will need to login again. However, you will get back any answers you saved previously.

You can access the survey in two ways - through the Internet or using the attached pdf. We prefer that you use the Internet. If you have internet access:

- Click on the link below or type the address into Internet Explorer.
- Enter the login and password provided below.

Survey link: https://www.asr3.com/sm
Your login: yyyxzzzz
Your password: 0000

If you do not have internet access, click on the attached pdf. You must be using Adobe Acrobat version 6 for the pdf to work automatically. Saving the pdf on your PC before answering will help improve the speed at which you can answer. At the beginning of the questionnaire there is some detailed information about how the pdf file works. Please take time to read this if you do not have internet access and are answering by pdf.

If you have any technical problems, please contact Australian Survey Research on 03 9578 5211 or e-mail [email protected]

If you have a question about the conduct or content of the survey, please contact x on or y on at xx, DOTARS.

Thank you in advance for your ideas and feedback.

Regards
I've ignored the spelling mistake that's contained in the body of the message, but am curious about two aspects :-

1. Use of the phrase "if you do not have internet access". Well, ummm, it's like this... I got this message because I have internet access! After all, it WAS sent via the internet... wasn't it?

2. What is the rubbish in the final paragraph, which I will repeat here :- "please contact x on or y on at xx, DOTARS."

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to participate in a genuine survey, but this sounds like spam. I'm not about to click any link in ANY e-mail that I can't trust.

Last edited by OzExpat; 6th Dec 2005 at 07:03.
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Old 5th Dec 2005, 23:18
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The Aussurveys web site quoted appears to be a legitimate company contracted to the Australian Government.

The log in and password would be exclusive to the email address the email was sent to, so responses would not be anonymous, at least to the survey company.

The email would appear to be genuine.

Woomera
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Old 5th Dec 2005, 23:45
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Looks real. If you frig around with the URL and do some searches the 'asr3' pulls up some other surveys. I'll whack one in tho I wasn't invited There is nothing controversial there, just a survey of perceived effectiveness of each of the multi-pronged info attack and whether you got it or not.

'please contact x on or y on at xx, DOTARS' smacks of the same carelessly negligent approach to cut'n'paste displayed in the CTAF guidance material, so its a guarantee Mike Smith was involved in your email.

Example. The Septic document plagiarised suggests you should use a downwind leg spaced 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile from the runway. Being Septics they mean statute miles, but its cut'n'pasted in the blurb as 1/2 to 3/4 of a NAUTICAL mile. Wrong. It’s the wrong distance and the wrong units. Short distances in Australia should be expressed in meters or tenths of a nautical mile, so if you really wanted to @rselick the Septics and implement their procedures for no real benefit they should say 800-1200 meters or 0.4-0.6 NM. Or they could have ignored the Septic fascination with fractions, (and who have to also keep it simple for the Arkansas fliers) and said 1000 meters or 0.5 NM.

(ps. After reading Wooms comment on individual passwords I won't submit a survey using the addressee's identity, and neither should anybody else.)
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Old 6th Dec 2005, 07:15
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Thumbs up

Thanks W and karrank. It only belatedly occurred to me that I should've editted the login and password as it will relate to my e-mail address. So now that the horse has bolted, so to speak, I've editted those two items though I recognise that it might already be too late as there's been plenty of opportunity to abuse it.

I guess that means I won't be contributing directly to this survey now, as someone may already have done it for me.

Have an idea that I might've met Mike Smith some many years ago, if he used to be an ATC and airspace specialist. However, I can't imagine how DOTARS got hold of my e-mail address, which is the first reason that an alert flag went up in my mind.

In any event, I probably shouldn't contribute to the survey anyway, as I don't fly in the airspace. Well not very often anyway! And, most of the times when I do, it's in a "P2" aeroplane and, for some strange reason, everyone seems to want to keep everything VERY simple for me...
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Old 6th Dec 2005, 08:12
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Log in doesn't work, won't accept the username and password given. When queried they said they had made a mistake (????!!!!). Works now. Survey just like the airspace.
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Old 6th Dec 2005, 08:41
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I am surprised tha they did not refer you to the web site to download the .pdf from as there is no way that anyone ever should open an attachment sent to them from dubious sources.
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Old 6th Dec 2005, 08:57
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Pdf wouldn't work either, you could fill in the answers but it wouldn't call home. The whole exercise was par for the course.
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Old 6th Dec 2005, 09:04
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I'm adverse to giving *any* information for free, if they want my info and opnion, then they should pay for it, after all if they are indeed contracted by the Aus Gov, then why should I or anyone else give them free "consultancy info" after all they are probably being paid a pretty penny by the gnomes in canberra.

a 5% tax credit would do nicely thank you very much.
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Old 6th Dec 2005, 12:43
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Captain Claret!

I am reliably informed the man in charge of this mess is a good friend of yours from the Cessnock days.

Could you give him a call and tell him we're sick of being Roger'd!
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