.htaccess redirect GET parameters and PDFs

Hey All!

I am quite a newbie so please be gentle 🙂
I have a few links from an old site – asp files with parameters in querystring – I wan them redirected to my new WordPress site.

When I perform the 301 Redirect it takes along the parameters and some of them are considered in WordPress code somehow (I guess), like ?cat=12 from example.
also, some are pdf files I used to have in my old site and the 301 Redirect is looking for the pdf in the new file (I am guessing that’s because it’s not considered a web file extension)

For example:
I want is all files to go simply to my homepage, but what I get is:

1. http://www.mysite.com/site/siteAbout.asp?cat=43 -> http://www.mysite.com?cat=43
and then I get error 404 for some reason (which doesn’t happen with other parameters)
The redirect is:
Redirect 301 /site/siteAbout.asp http://www.newsite.com

2. http://www.mysite.com/oldPDF.pdf -> http://www.mysite.com/oldPDF.pdf
The redirect is:
Redirect 301 /uploads/articlesdocs/example.pdf http://www.newsite.com

[ No bumping please. ]