How do I search this forum for possible answers to my questions before I start a new topic requesting an answer?

the forum doesn't have an onsite search currently.
but you can use the google site search capability by adding site:tixati.com to any search you want.

You can read here for further infomation: forum.tixati.com/offtopic/36/
Basically, there isn't such thing.

while there is no onsite search of this forum currently, there is a simple workaround

add site:tixati.com to what ever search terms you want and I'd recommend a search engine such as ixquick.com ("the world's most private search engine") rather than one that spies on you like google does.

If you use the firefox browser, you can add ixquick to your list of search engines and if you like it, make it your default:

https://www.ixquick.com/eng/download-ixquick-plugin.html