Posts by W4YBO 308 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Jan 2016
As an amateur astronomer, I'm a little irritated that Lockheed Martin have taken it upon themselves to redefine "First Light." First Light for a telescope occurs after all the setup, alignment, collimation, etc. that makes the telescope useable for observing.
However, I'm retired now, so being irritated is included in my current job description. Excuse me. I've got to shoo some kids off the lawn.
"I would not feel comfortable leaving a shop without a physical "get out of jail free" card."
Same for "Pay at the pump" gas (petrol) receipts. A state trooper will probably haul you in for questioning if the convenience store clerk (who's been on duty for 12 hours) misidentifies yours as the vehicle that drove off without paying.
FAA and FCC have both been aware of the problem since the late 1990s. If you listen to top-of-the-hour radio newscasts and have noticed occasional gaps in the audio, sometimes accompanied by a squeak, then you have too. It's often caused by a C band radar altimeter flying directly over the C band satellite antenna. Operating a licensed (supposedly interference protected) ground station digital audio receiver, the broadcaster I worked for filed several interference complaints. I'm retired now, but I still notice the holes and squeaks in the news audio. It'll probably take great loss of life before they actually do something about it.
"...Wifi to walkie talkies to cordless phones to RC models."
The big noisemakers in the 2.4 GHz band are microwave ovens. But, at least it's easy to direction-find a 1000 watt interference source.
P.S. If you have a pacemaker, please buy a leakage meter. Microwave ovens *all* leak.
Until a few months ago, Burger King was my favored drive-thru hamburger restaurant. Good for a quick meal on my way. Then I read an article in one of the national newspapers about a social experiment that BK performed in some of it's outlets to see if anyone would stand up to a "bully" abusing another "customer." Despite their laudable goal, I haven't been back since.
I brought the FNG to our mountaintop site and gave a standard tour of three FMs and two UHF-TV transmitters. I'd excused myself to head to the bathroom when there was a godawful explosion and flash of light. He had opened the door to the 100 kW UHF high voltage cabinet (room sized cabinet). 55,000 volts and current limited only by the capacitor's discharge time meant entering that room while it was energised risked leaving as a nasty smelling puff of smoke. We shut down the transmitter, discharged a cap that had not contributed to the lightning bolt, and set FNG at replacing contacts on the interlock. Back on-air in about 15 minutes.
He started off with a doozy, but I never knew him to make another mistake, and he had a long career with that company until he left to start his own contract engineering firm.
We were installing a new three meter dish on the roof and had several outages that week. Chatting over a few pints of ‘brain lube’ and including a cohort that was familiar with aviation electronics got me on the trail. Then asked the boss to make inquiries at the local general aviation airfield.
Reposted due to relevance...
I tried for several weeks to diagnose an intermittent interruption in a Scientific Atlanta digital satellite receiver. Usually only on Fridays before lunch, but occasionally randomly throughout the week. Worked out to be two causes. First was the guy with a spark transmitter cleverly disguised as a Weedeater brand string trimmer. It generated every frequency from DC to Light and would swamp the LNA on the dish antenna. Had the disk jockey on duty flag the guy down just before the top of the hour to give him a ten minute break, so we could get through the top-of-hour newscast. The second cause (random throughout the week) was a private plane at the local airport that just had a radar altimeter installed. When he would fly over, his radar's outgoing pulse would overload the LNA and knock a three second hole in the received audio.
First year Electrical Engineering lab class. Somebody (not me) discovered that charging a Sprague Orangedrop 0.01 µF capacitor to 200-300v and tossing it to a classmate would elicit a satisfying howl.
Forty years later, and I still avoid catching stuff tossed to me by surprise.
I recently ordered some new QSL cards (a postcard used to verify a Ham radio conversation) from a company about 300 miles from my home. The company shipped via FedEx SmartPost, a service that ships via FedEx to the local post office for delivery. FedEx sent them on a 3000+ mile odyssey that included six states, and took almost two weeks.
"Why do people cite mythbusters as if it's science rather than tv entertainment?"
Particularly bad in their later seasons. I like explosions as much as the next guy, but the careful experiment to boom ratio went way down.
As far as gaining access to a "secure" area, I just got the skinny intern to drop through the drop ceiling panel after shimmying over the wall. Justified use of an intern, since he'd somehow changed the code on the lock in the first place.
Being from the southern US, I never really gave this phrase much thought until a few weeks ago. That's when I saw my neighbor's three-legged Malinois (missing left front leg) run down a 30-35 mph bicyclist in front of our house.
Yes, I'm that guy that counts seconds while speeders traverse two utility poles. If I lived in town, I'd be yelling "Get off my lawn!"
Most contemporary safes have a 3/8 inch hole drilled into the lower right rear to pass a power cord through. My Heritage safe (6' x 3' x 2' interior) uses a 3 watt heater, and I've never had any condensation problems, even with a damp basement. The hole equalizes air pressure so you can open the door after barometric changes, too.
New owners operations manager essentially told me I wouldn't have a job in a couple of weeks, and that he'd make my life hell until then. His best buddy was taking my position, and I needed to go push-mow the six acre tower field in the meantime. I'd already been looking, and had a couple of possibilities, so I said goodbye with the anticipation of a short vacation while interviewing.
FNG (the New Guy, you guess what the F stands for) decided he was so happy with his new job that he hadn't shown up for yet, and that he'd celebrate with a bottle. Then hurricane Hugo hit. Old oak tree came down on the outer guy point, and snapped the 400 foot tower like a twig. FNG gets bagged for drunk driving before he got out of his home state. Never did make it to his new job.
I didn't quite see it, but I felt and heard the explosion of a flour mill (actually the grain elevator, but the mill disappeared when the elevator did) around three miles away. I hope no one allows that much dust build-up in their data center, but I've seen one that had to be close.
I love the smell of Latakia in the morning! I cleaved to the pipe as well in my early twenties as a backpacker (trail name - Freight Train. Guess why.) Works wonders repelling black flies and mosquitoes. Add more Latakia, and it'll repel most people, too.
I wonder if vape liquid scents attract black bears?
I was jangled awake dark and early one spring morning by my bedside telephone. The main transmitter was off the air, the backup was on, and oh yeah, the smoke alarm at the transmitter site is alarming. Hour drive to the site, but the backup stayed on-air for the whole trip, so the building's probably not burning down. No flash fire when I opened the building door, so that's good.
When I entered the transmitter building, my first thought was "bar-b-que!" That was the weirdest smelling melted transformer or vented capacitor I'd ever encountered. Smelled a hell of a lot better than a fried selenium rectifier stack.
Start diagnosis with the power amplifier (4CX15000A tube) power supply, so I drop to my knees (aah, those were the days) in front of the PA rack, and begin unscrewing the panel screws. I moved the panel off to the side, and there he was; a two foot long copperhead! I stood up like a ninja!
I didn't really need to worry. Cool night, warm 22 kilovolt transformer. He crawled on top of the transformer and bridged the output terminals. He wasn't going to move again without help. So I helped. Cleaned up the mess, ran fans to ventilate the building, and got the main back on-air. But I never did figure out where he got into the building.
I'd love to play like that, even unpaid. Unfortunately, due to the 1986 Electronic Communication Privacy Act, hobbyists aren't allowed to receive cellular frequencies. In the mid eighties, cellular companies lobbied Congress so they wouldn't have to scramble or digitize their, at that time, narrow FM signals. We're still stuck with it, as well as the Satellite Home Viewers Act, which did the same thing for satellite companies.
Personally, I think if their RF energy is striking me, I should be able to do anything I want with it.
In the late seventies, my southern US hometown installed a new traffic light system that featured a 1"x2"x3" box hanging with each set of lights. Way too small for an industrial camera at the time, but if you flashed a particular speed strobe at it, the traffic lights would cycle. I was in high school. Had a lot of fun with that.
I've noticed similar boxes and tubes on many traffic lights and assumed they performed a similar function.
Or you could drive a firetruck.
"Emitting a loud "crack!" they actually exploded into several plastic artefacts while sitting on my face as I was reading. I dunno, maybe I was looking through them too hard."
I had a freshly ground prescription lens do something similar. New wire-rimmed spectacles, just a couple of hours after picking them up, and I noticed a curved line emanating from a corner of the right lens. Just as I was removing them, POP!, and the right lens was in several pieces on my desk. LensCrafters technician told me the grinding lab probably forgot to stress relieve the lens, and pressure from being mounted in the rim drove the stresses past the point of self-disassembly.
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
- C.S. Lewis
We'd like to keep you around, regardless of On-Call.
And if you hear somebody dismiss Y2K as nothing, remind them it turned out that way because of the how the tech community prepared for it. Hell, I even kissed my wife on the New Year standing next to a running 300kw genset.
Merry Christmas to all, and have a happy and prosperous New Year!
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
