Love your IoT gadget but could you keep the noise down? Shutupshutupshutup. There’s a man with an extraordinarily annoying voice on this floor and I wish he would take his fulsomely resonating gob somewhere else. Blah blah market synchronisation blah blah invested intelligence blah blah cooperative disruption arse bollocks. Don’t you just love open-plan offices? Actually, come to …
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I'm not sure that's actually true.
a) Scarcity of car Radios. Almost all radios before 1930 used batteries, 2V, 4V or 6V Lead Acid for filaments. 60 x 2V small lead acid or 90 x Dry cells for HT! Cars rarely had a battery other than maybe a 1.5V ignition cell for spark while cranking, then the magneto powered ignition. The ignition was easily "suppressed" by suppressor spark plug caps etc. The radio was't powered of the car, being basically a repackaged home unit.
Interference has got VERY severe since 1990s:
PC SMPSUs that NEVER had filters or got them taken out later to save money after CE approval.
Powerline Ethernet. Illegal period if tested properly.
Electronic "Ballasts" replacing passive interference free chokes on Tube lamps and on CFLs (early CFLs used a choke in the special ceiling unit).
Phone chargers etc as per PC SMPSUs
LED lamp PSUs
Flashing christmas tree controllers (any type lamp)
LED lamps on Christmas trees even if not flashing.
Dishwashers, Dryers, Washing Machines changed from Mechanical sync motor programmers to CPU (issue partly PSU, but CPU leaking RF)
Shielding abandoned on PCs, Laptops, etc.
LCD and Plasma screen matrix drive (screen radiates unless transparent tin coated)
Screen back light PSUs
etc ...
But the IoT uses up the WiFi channels faster as well as the PSUs and motors making interference, but most homes AM Radio is already usless and VHF-FM is increasingly getting home generated interference.
"Real" Car radios did exist from early 1930s, but still rare till 1950s. They used MECHANICAL switch mode PSUs at 40Hz to 120Hz (Vibrator packs) to get HT. Very well shieilded separate PSU boxes, often with speaker driver amp. From late 1950s they started adding a pair of Germanium transistors as a SMPSU, then as audio Out and running the rest of the valves off 12V. Then from about 1958 the first all transistor car radios appeared.
AFAIK in 1922 a Ford Model T in Chicago was fitted with a radio (no idea what make), as was a Daimler in Britain (Marconiphone).
1927 marks the first industrial produced car radio, the 'Philco Transitone'. It was made by the Storage Battery Co., Philadelphia and Chevrolet offered it as an optional extra. Didn't sell that nuch, though.
Things got moving in 1930 with the Model 5T71 by the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation (GMC). The Model 5T71 was soon known as 'Motorola', from 'motor(car)' and 'Victrola', a popular Grammophone brand at the time.
In 1932 Bosch and the company that would later be known as Blaupunkt got in the game with the first car radio developed in Europe, the 'AutosuperAS 5'. The 5 stands for the 5 valves, and it was remote controlled via bowden cables attached to the steering wheel. Cost roughly 15% of what an average car would cost you at the time, so not really 'mass production either'.
Not the whole story about the batteries. In 1957-ish my father was rebuilding a Ford Model C 10 once owned by his father around the time of WWII (and of unquestionably older vintage even then), and the A/C power for the radio was supplied by an electromagnetic relay designed to switch on and off continuously very quickly.
I used to play with that and a spare trafficator of a Sunday morning when he took me to the lockup the car sat in. No doubt had he ever restored the vehicle to working condition I'd have gotten a belt round the ear for losing or damaging the Electromechanical Vibratory Veeblefetzer, rendering the car's occupants incapable of hearing the reassuring tones of Alvar Riddel on the old Vidor three-valve superheterodyne receiver (or whatever model was fitted).
"[...] VHF-FM is increasingly getting home generated interference."
A similar thing happened to nearby neighbours about 20 years ago. The official interference complaint had everyone logging - and that was about all that happened. I eventually tracked it down with some simple direction finding. It was a neighbour's TV's scan unit trying to shape shift into an SSB transmitter PA. It started about 7am - when she plonked her toddler in front of it for the day - and it was only switched off late at night. It finally stopped when they moved away.
My bedside radio has just started suffering like that. Seems to start about 5am and goes on until at least 9am. Doesn't sound like a TV scan warble though.
Early this morning I went down to the garage and switched off my newly constructed Arduino 433.92mhz front door bell repeater. Nope - not that. Which leaves the litany of my other devices that Mr Dabbs has mentioned - before I can blame the neighbours or the Network Rail insulators.
The easiest start to the binary chop will be to take down the house power with a test of the RCD - except most of the FM radios will lose their station presets. The one in the bedroom seems to use non-volatile memory for those - but not for its volume and tone. The slightest power glitch resets that to a default deaf head banger level - plus maximum bass boost. You only discover that reset when desiring some gentle sleep inducing music in the middle of the night - and are jarred totally awake scrabbling for the controls.
At least the CO alarm has the courtesy to bleep as it goes off or on. However if only half heard then you can spend some time standing under each of the smoke alarms to listen for which one is signalling it needs its battery changing - NOW! That generally turns out to be the dumb mobile phone in you trouser pocket across the room wanting its feed of nourishing electricity.
In one visit to Japan we bought an alarm clock in the shape of a bear standing to attention wearing baseball kit.
Sure enough - you're probably way ahead of me here - while peacefully asleep in the hotel room we were rudely awakened at 3 a.m. precisely by the little fucker right on cue shouting "Go! Go Go!" .... "Go! Go! Go!" complete with faux crowd noises ..... Of course as a new purchase that day it took a while to realise what was making the din, and another while to find the box, and open it, and to figure how to silence the f******
Given that the "weekend" section disappeared mysteriously and quietly a couple of week ago (a passing away that *nobody* seems to mourn), I have high hopes that Dabbs and the BOfH will finally be back to their rightful place: Friday Morning* where they can help us jumpstart the dreadful day.
*Morning in the left-hand side of the Pond, at least.
I do miss Worstall's articles but never liked the decision of publishing them (and Dabbsy's) on Saturdays, given that most readers access the site Mon - Fri during working hours... *ahem*
And it's true: Worstall's services are no longer needed by El Reg. The man himself confirmed that on a forum post a while ago.
Excellent choice of videos.
Also, "...like the Dalek Morse Code you get during a landline phone call when you leave your mobile on the desk..." is the best description of that phenomenom I've ever heard.
And, last but not least, it reminded me of Runaway. If Dabbsy is right, this may become a real thing.
Runaway's just a rip-off of 2000AD's Sam Slade, with all the jokes stripped out and a moustache pasted on.
"Runaway's just a rip-off of 2000AD's Sam Slade, with all the jokes stripped out and a moustache pasted on."
Which just might have been itself inspired by Magnus Robot Fighter 4000 A.D., first published by Gold Key Comics in February 1963.
But then R.U.R. (Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti - Rossum’s Universal Robots) premiered on 25 January 1921.
As one of those horrible amateur radio folks, I agree that there is far, far too much radio racket being made inadvertently by equipment. And you can't even get the government here (U.S.) to enforce their own laws against radio interference even when those laws do exist. I could give several examples, but won't bore everyone with them.
Perhaps someday something will get done about increasing interference after those with a lot of influence, like the president, major members of Congress, or some media mogul, have *their* chairs switch into anal sex mode by the neighbor's exercise bike.
And if you can't get into your house because of the IOT lock, see if you can't find a local burglar (perhaps the one who cleaned out your house last week - and the month before) - so he/she can convince the lock to open for you. With typical IOT security, they'll have no problems!
Yes, and the real fun begins when someone imports some dodgy crap from some Asian manufacturer.
A classic around here are wireless headphones centred on 147MHz. It just so happens, there's a repeater at Mt. Glorious that transmits on 147MHz (VK4RBN; receives 146.4MHz) which happens to be the oldest repeater site in Brisbane and one of the most widely used repeaters.
Add to this, Redcliffe Radio Club's like for fox hunts, hilarity ensues whenever one of those headphones winds up spewing its crap anywhere in the area.
As for HF, I don't think anyone outside of the radio community cares. Never pull up beside a set of LED-based traffic lights if you want to hear a weak station: I've seen the set on the bike go from pretty much no-noise to S8 within meters of a traffic light.
That made me laugh out loud, reading the long list of absurd and ridiculous things that could go wrong.
Absurd but highly probable, Murphy's Law states that what can go wrong, will. Based on that. the likley disasters that will befall ordinary people in what will become their ordinary Iot homes could well be worse.
Thank you for that Mr Dabbs one of your best.
"That made me laugh out loud, reading the long list of absurd and ridiculous things that could go wrong."
Maybe not as absurd as you think. You can guarantee that every IoT designer out there will be working on the assumption that his/her device is the only, or most important, IoT device in the house/building and that it will be spaffing data 24/7 for no good reason other than it can. Multiply that by.... :-(
You have the advantage over me on this one.
But you reminded me of a former MD I worked for complaining rather publicly of just such a reception area, ordered by his predecessor:
"It's like the waiting room in a Swedish brothel...[brain catches up with mouth]...or so they tell me."
Can't we have quiet offices like we once had train carriages?
Oh silly me, that is why I work from home 4 days a week.
After 46 years in ork, I've had enough of :-
- Last nights Corrie/East Enders
- Man Utd/Chelsea/Arsenal/etc being crap
- Justine Bieber and other so called musicians. (the 'e' is deliberate btw)
I just want to, you know get stuff done, what I'm paid to do. Then I can piss off home and be with my family.
An no this old bugger does not want to go to the company Crimble 'do' at some plastic hotel service rubber turkey.
Time to take the dog for a walk before the kids come home from shopping.
Brilliant article, several bits had me laughing out loud. This, however:
only achieving access to your home another 45 minutes later after reinstalling the operating system, downloading an app update and installing a JavaScript routine you found on GitHub.
is pure genius.
My otherwise charming neighbours have no notion of anything technical -- witness the fact that when they are present the wireless router we share is registering a multiplicity of phones, iPads and laptops, though the devices can't all be using the internet at once. Even when neighbours are not at home, snoozing devices are still reporting to the router.
Already some years ago I was noting people with desktop computers parked next to their routers but using wireless -- an ethernet cable is in the box with the router and is faster/more reliable than wireless.
The other pest is routers (all routers nowadays) which default to automatic channel selection -- which means that if I am using channel 6 to feed a laptop some distance from the router and next door's router is closer, when it randomly decides to switch to 6 or any channels adjacent, my internet slows down.
Change the bloody channel your router defaults to then!
Mine uses Channel 2 because of just the problem you describe. I can see 20+ different networks from my home office. 95% of them use the same channel.(not Channel 2)
now some [redacted] two streets away has boosted his wifi signal (illegally) so that many neighbours can't use their networks in the evenings.
I know who it is because of the old Pringles can trick and a bit of Wardriving to detect the max signal.
Oh how life in the burbs works.
Seriously considering ditcihng the Wi-fi and running Cat 6 around the house when it gets rewired next year.
> Change the bloody channel your router defaults to then!
That is no help when you change it to some currently unused channel - only for the neighbours device to switch channels again.
> Mine uses Channel 2 ...
You antisocial barsteward ! People like you are worse than the automatic "change channel to whatever you've just selected" version. Using channel 2 means that not only do you interfere with people using channel 1, but you also interfere with people using channel 6. Really, equipment should not allow selection of other than channels 1, 6 and 11* as these are the only 3 channels in the 2.4GHz band that don't overlap.
So by your antisocial choice of channel, you've managed to interfere with 2/3 of the neighbours instead fo just 1/3 !
* Or 13 in some places.
> now some [redacted] two streets away has boosted his wifi signal (illegally) so that many neighbours can't use their networks in the evenings.
Then report it as interference. From what I've read, OfCon can actually be useful with interference reports - especially if you show some technical nouse and and have already identified the problem.
> Seriously considering ditcihng the Wi-fi and running Cat 6 around the house when it gets rewired next year.
Just do it ! Really, if you're having the disruption of re-wiring, flood wire the place with wired network. I'm in the process of doing that as I redecorate each room. SWMBO doesn't understand it since "we've got WiFi" and I've given up trying to explain it - we've reached a detente, I don't try explaining it to her, she lets me get on with it !
That's what we did in my house. We couldn't take the constant stomping on by neighbor's equipment because of the auto-switching.
I did get some free chocolate chip cookies and tea one afternoon though for helping some elders down the street. Their router was broadcasting 100% free with no security on it. I recognized the router name because they put their name on it.
I went for a walk, about two houses away, knocked on the door and introduced myself. An hour later after fixing things, I had a nice snack, kibitzed with hubby and wife, and then got invited back anytime for a visit.
Another neighbor infringed on my wireless network too. The problem is he used the default 192.168.1.1 network. I didn't, but had to reset my router due to some reason I don't remember. I then logged into the default network, thinking it was mine but it was the one across the street. I didn't notice this until I rebooted and couldn't log in. Oops!
I walked over there and introduced myself and made a few bucks as I fixed his network for him. I got to do a few IT fix-it jobs for him later on and became nice local customer until he moved to Florida.
This article brings back some memories too....
Way back in my ancient days as a typesetter between IT jobs, I used a Varityper Epics 20/20. The equipment consisted of a large data terminal, CPU (with an 8-inch floppy drive no less and 2x20 MB hard drives), and the output device.
One day I wanted to listen to the radio. I couldn't do it no matter what station I tried. Most stations either hissed loudly, or picked up the sound of the system. You could hear beep-beep-beep, sounds which coincided exactly with data being written to the hard drives. When I sent stuff over to the output device, the data made a warbling, beeping sound that sounded like a fax machine, which of course it wasn't since everything was hooked up via a humongous RS422 cable. Nice shielding on that equipment - Not!
...of a Ray Bradbury short story "There Will Come Soft Rains". An automated house deals with "life" after a nuclear war.
Yeah, kudos for the memory of reading The Silver Locusts after A-Levels were done.
Of course, Bradbury's house was not networked to Hellenbach with WiFi IoT spamosity, had an independent power supply and ran smarts courtesy of vacuum tubes. In the same scenario, a subminiature semiconductor-based IoT-riddled house would be mercifully dark and silent owing to every single appliance's smartstuff being fried by EMP.
I imagine it will come as a blessing to be honest. I'd welcome the IoT but it just looks like a reason to waste power for specious reasons to me. I can't think of a single benefit to owning web-aware lightbulbs that can't be achieved cheaper, simpler and safer another way.
Five wifi signals? You is well lucky. I've got 14+ that are actual wifi, and broadcasting their SSIDs. Then there are another 10+ that aren't broadcasting, several cordless phones and at least one inconveniently located microwave.
Needless to say all computers are on wired connections here. And I've given up making the phone's wifi work.
You know how many cheap USB devices are knock-offs of each other and use some abominable firmware not compatible with anything except weendoze software that goes beyond "abominable" and into "the things that should not be"? Which in turn is either also not compatible with anything or non-trivially interacts with mouse, because the original long-discontinued abomination was a knock-off of some vaguely similar HID device?.. Yes, those things.
Now replace "everything plugged into wired bus of one machine" with "every shiny thing owned by all human magpies in all apartments in 3 nearby houses".
That's going to be splendid. If you're not within 50 meters of any of those houses, that is.
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