[Richard the Dreaded Libertarian]

I had a chat with the station's engineer and his opinion was that UHF
travels through buildings and high-rises better. I guess we lost out to
them flatlanders

And besides, I think the vast majority of urban dwellers in high-rises
will have cable TV anyhow. IMHO it's only a matter of time until folks
on the outskirts hang up on such stations and go to non-local channels
on satellite. Or as the next generation already does, fulfill their
media consumption wishes via the web for news and Netflix for movies.
Then, ad revenue drops, station budgets begin to shrivel up, pink slips
are handed out. <brag_mode> I see that coming, just as I saw the
mortgage bubble burst coming </brag_mode>.

Hey, I saw the socialism coming! Note the date on this one:

<quote>
Richard The Dreaded Libertarian
View profile
More options Aug 1 2008, 2:48 pm

Sure, the gravy train. Question is how do we stop that?

Vote Libertarian?

Otherwise, we sit back and protect our own jewels, and try to enjoy
the ride when the card house comes crashing down all around us. >:->

Cheers!
Rich

</quote>

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

Did it hurt? ;-)

Do you have any anti-virus programs running that

Yes, I do but not from MS. However, it doesn't make a difference. I have
had the same Adobe crashes on client computers. Those were usually top
notch big fat workstations, maintained by an IT department. When telling
the engineers the typical reply was "Yeah, happens all the time with PDF
files".

Is this with full-on Acrobat, or just the reader? Have you tried any of
those "clean up adobe" third-party things that make it not load all those
plug-ins? Have you tried any third-party PDF readers?

I've got Adobe reader, and I'm pretty sure I ran one of those "get rid
of the plugins" things, but it's been so long I can't remember, but I've
_never_ had adobe reader crash the system.

Another thing that might go in my favor is that having a dual-boot system
(W2K and Slackware 11.0), I've got it configured so that when I boot W2K,
I don't even connect to the network. Is Adobe trying to phone home?

Good Luck!
Rich

 

[Joerg]

I made one of those 4-bay bowties, and had it hanging in front of an
aluminum venetian blind, which I'd reasoned should act like a reflector.

A bowtie is possibly the next (and last) thing I'll try out. With a
reflector it gets rid of back reflections better than our log-periodic.
But the antenna location is a bit scary to get to so I am dreading this.

My VHF antenna is on the roof, so I had to swap every time I went from
VHF to UHF, and on the UHF channels I had to dick around with the antenna,
ass-u-me-ing that the distance to the "reflector" made some difference.

We have the biggest honking ChannelMaster combo antenna there is.

Then I realized that the guy who did that demo on utube didn't even use
a reflector, so I raised the venetian blind, and WOW! Everything comes
in perfectly! I had to find a piece of cardboard to stuff into the window,
but I get channels I've never even seen before! Of course, I had to go
through the add/remove menu a couple of times to get rid of all the
Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, televangelist, and etc. channels, but
I'm really quite happy with it.

I like worship channels (but not any kult stuff) and when exercising I
watch Telemundo news because I want to be able to understand at least
some Spanish. When we had trees cut I asked the Mexican foreman what his
guys were talking about up in the trees, that I understood nothing. He
said "No entiendo tampoco". Some sort of very southern dialect, too far
from his Spanish.

Disclaimer - I'm about 40 miles from Mount Baldy, which I hear is where
the antennas are, and it's practically line-of-sight.

Different here. The signal has to make it through a cut (west of Bass
Lake Grade) and then it hits two back-to-back ridges. For RF it's almost
like huge tin can with a small hole in there. Reflections of several
hundred usec are normal out here. Analog did just fine under those
conditions, digital stinks. On the analyzer they are all nice square
blocks in the spectrum but the TVs are so far dumbed down that all they
show is "no signal". Even though there's a big fat signal.

 

[Joerg]

Joel Koltner wrote:
Actually the laptop I had with me was even better. It could directly run off
a 12V car battery. If you have a large marine deep cycle (which they all
seem to have up there) it'll run for days.
I've sometimes wondered why ~19V has seemingly become the most prevalent
laptop input voltage standard today... cranking it up from 12V reduces
current, of course, and perhaps much above 19V the power switches get more
expensive?

No idea, maybe because of the typical LiIon configuration. The old
Contura was NiCd. Lasted 6h on this standard old-tech battery, regularly
blew high-faluting IBMs out of the water.

[snip]

My Lenovo ThinkPad X61s will do about 8 hours (LiIon) _provided_ I'm
not running a simulation ;-) (I up-sized the battery when I bought
it.)

IBM learned it, finally. Then they sold out :-(

My netbook gets over 8h on the standard battery. But I learned rather
quickly that you do _not_ want to do SPICE sims on an Intel Atom
processor. Unless you are next to a pool and can do 25 laps while it
crunches. So if that is required on the road I'll have to schlepp the
Durabook, all 7lbs of it.

I'm contemplating a GoToMyPC, or PC Anywhere approach. My son says I
don't need any commercial (as in "paid") method, I can do it myself.
Then I could run simulations on my home box, and just read it out via
the notebook.

It won't be fun. The *.raw files spit out by my sims are often well over
30MB. Then you sit there sipping coffee looking at the data xfer
progress bar crawling ever so slowly. You need those files to be able to
take a peek at this, that and the other node.

So far I haven't pursued this idea but, unfortunately, the economy
soothsayers are predicting travel is in my future :-(

Huh? What changed? Ok, I've also got some international clients but
unless something major happens I don't have to travel there. Once in a
while an engineer drops in here but mostly just to have at least one
face-to-face, often after years of online collaboration. One does come
by regularly and we do over at their place, but that's for beers

 

[Joerg]

[...]

Then I could run simulations on my home box, and just read it out via
the notebook.

Kinda ironic how the more things change the more they stay the same... we're
getting back to the "big iron" machine centrally located accessed by a "smart
terminal" somewhere on the Internet.

That's because people and manufacturers (finally!) came to their senses
and brought us laptops and netbooks that last more than a paltry 2h per
battery charge. The price to pay is a huge drop in computing power.
While my roughly 3-year old laptop holds up quite well with SPICE the
new netbook is extremely slow. But that's ok, I knew that.

[...]

 

[Jim Thompson]

The "remove your laptop from its case" requirement eventually caused me to go
out and get one of the "TSA approved" laptop cases. At least a little easier,
even though it's still a completely ridiculous requirement that I don't think
does anything to improve airline safety.


Hmm, sorry to hear that. I suppose that when money gets tight people get
nervous and being able to physically see their worker bees is somehow
comforting...

Your retirement income -- that's mainly pensions/401k's/etc.? I've been
dealing with my stepfather's mild dementia for the past handful of months now,
and from what I can tell most seniors get ~$12k/year from social security. I
worry about people born much after the ~70s -- for them often there isn't any
standard company pension/retirement plan, so if they aren't savvy enough to
invest in 401k's/IRAs themselves, they're really going to be hurting once they
hit retirement age.

---Joel

Combination of a GenRad pension and social security.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine Sometimes I even put it in the food

 

[Jim Thompson]

Jim Thompson wrote:
Joel Koltner wrote:
Actually the laptop I had with me was even better. It could directly run off
a 12V car battery. If you have a large marine deep cycle (which they all
seem to have up there) it'll run for days.
I've sometimes wondered why ~19V has seemingly become the most prevalent
laptop input voltage standard today... cranking it up from 12V reduces
current, of course, and perhaps much above 19V the power switches get more
expensive?

No idea, maybe because of the typical LiIon configuration. The old
Contura was NiCd. Lasted 6h on this standard old-tech battery, regularly
blew high-faluting IBMs out of the water.

[snip]

My Lenovo ThinkPad X61s will do about 8 hours (LiIon) _provided_ I'm
not running a simulation ;-) (I up-sized the battery when I bought
it.)

IBM learned it, finally. Then they sold out :-(

My netbook gets over 8h on the standard battery. But I learned rather
quickly that you do _not_ want to do SPICE sims on an Intel Atom
processor. Unless you are next to a pool and can do 25 laps while it
crunches. So if that is required on the road I'll have to schlepp the
Durabook, all 7lbs of it.

I'm contemplating a GoToMyPC, or PC Anywhere approach. My son says I
don't need any commercial (as in "paid") method, I can do it myself.
Then I could run simulations on my home box, and just read it out via
the notebook.

It won't be fun. The *.raw files spit out by my sims are often well over
30MB.

Naaaah! You view the Probe screen, the .DAT files stay on "old iron"
;-)

Then you sit there sipping coffee looking at the data xfer
progress bar crawling ever so slowly. You need those files to be able to
take a peek at this, that and the other node.

Nope. You operate as if "You Are There" (remember that TV series ?

Huh? What changed?

More and more people insisting on-site consulting/design. I've run on
to that in the past, but a one week's visit convinced them that it'd
be faster, were I at my office. This year everyone treats me like I'm
as trustworthy as a Democrat :-(

Ok, I've also got some international clients but
unless something major happens I don't have to travel there. Once in a
while an engineer drops in here but mostly just to have at least one
face-to-face, often after years of online collaboration. One does come
by regularly and we do over at their place, but that's for beers

That's been mostly my experience, too.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

Obama clearly blames insurance companies for his mother's death
from cancer. One then has to wonder if this whole health bill
isn't a personal vendetta against private insurance companies?

 

[Joerg]

Did it hurt? ;-)


Is this with full-on Acrobat, or just the reader? Have you tried any of
those "clean up adobe" third-party things that make it not load all those
plug-ins? Have you tried any third-party PDF readers?

Just the reader. I've tried Foxit but it didn't display every PDF.

I've got Adobe reader, and I'm pretty sure I ran one of those "get rid
of the plugins" things, but it's been so long I can't remember, but I've
_never_ had adobe reader crash the system.

I really don't like some unknown downloaded routine "cleaning up things"
on my PC.

Another thing that might go in my favor is that having a dual-boot system
(W2K and Slackware 11.0), I've got it configured so that when I boot W2K,
I don't even connect to the network. Is Adobe trying to phone home?

It has tried occasionally for updates. But the PC doesn't let it.

 

[Joerg]

Jim Thompson wrote:

[...]

It won't be fun. The *.raw files spit out by my sims are often well over
30MB.

Naaaah! You view the Probe screen, the .DAT files stay on "old iron"
;-)

How large do they become?

Nope. You operate as if "You Are There" (remember that TV series ?

Don't remember that series. If it's old and it didn't make it into The
Netherlands I've probably never seen one.

More and more people insisting on-site consulting/design. I've run on
to that in the past, but a one week's visit convinced them that it'd
be faster, were I at my office. This year everyone treats me like I'm
as trustworthy as a Democrat :-(

So far I have not seen any changes. Maybe board level analog designers
are more trustworthy? <ducking ...>

My clients leave that up to me and I make sure I only go there when
needed. Travel expenses kind of rack up if you must stay on site, I
can't imagine any client wanting those to increase substantially.

[...]

 

[Jim Thompson]

A bowtie is possibly the next (and last) thing I'll try out. With a
reflector it gets rid of back reflections better than our log-periodic.
But the antenna location is a bit scary to get to so I am dreading this.



We have the biggest honking ChannelMaster combo antenna there is.



I like worship channels (but not any kult stuff) and when exercising I
watch Telemundo news because I want to be able to understand at least
some Spanish. When we had trees cut I asked the Mexican foreman what his
guys were talking about up in the trees, that I understood nothing. He
said "No entiendo tampoco". Some sort of very southern dialect, too far
from his Spanish.



Different here. The signal has to make it through a cut (west of Bass
Lake Grade) and then it hits two back-to-back ridges. For RF it's almost
like huge tin can with a small hole in there. Reflections of several
hundred usec are normal out here. Analog did just fine under those
conditions, digital stinks. On the analyzer they are all nice square
blocks in the spectrum but the TVs are so far dumbed down that all they
show is "no signal". Even though there's a big fat signal.

Maybe do what I did for FM before I switched to all web-based radio...
aim your antenna at a reflecting object... until Roku I got my FM by
aiming a yagi at the windows of a house south of me and about 75'
higher, to clear the hill north of me.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine Sometimes I even put it in the food

 

[Jim Thompson]

Jim Thompson wrote:

[...]

I'm contemplating a GoToMyPC, or PC Anywhere approach. My son says I
don't need any commercial (as in "paid") method, I can do it myself.
Then I could run simulations on my home box, and just read it out via
the notebook.

It won't be fun. The *.raw files spit out by my sims are often well over
30MB.

Naaaah! You view the Probe screen, the .DAT files stay on "old iron"
;-)

How large do they become?

I've had .DAT files as large as 10GB.

But you only need to carry the visual equivalent over the connection.

Don't remember that series. If it's old and it didn't make it into The
Netherlands I've probably never seen one.

It was a historical thing... transported back to Caesar's time, etc.
;-)

[snip]

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine Sometimes I even put it in the food

 

[Joerg]

Rich Grise wrote:

[DTV]

Different here. The signal has to make it through a cut (west of Bass
Lake Grade) and then it hits two back-to-back ridges. For RF it's almost
like huge tin can with a small hole in there. Reflections of several
hundred usec are normal out here. Analog did just fine under those
conditions, digital stinks. On the analyzer they are all nice square
blocks in the spectrum but the TVs are so far dumbed down that all they
show is "no signal". Even though there's a big fat signal.

Maybe do what I did for FM before I switched to all web-based radio...
aim your antenna at a reflecting object... until Roku I got my FM by
aiming a yagi at the windows of a house south of me and about 75'
higher, to clear the hill north of me.

Tried that, didn't work either

The mast is bolted to the house. I can loosen the bolts and the rotate
by hand, making the aiming job fairly easy. Well, with analog it was.
With the dumbed down digital TVs it ain't. First, you have to wait the
usual several seconds after a channel switch which was instant on
analog. Then the TV shows you zero information on how close the signal
is to a multipath collapse.

Also, and the large signal performance of "modern" TVs is the pits.

 

[Joerg]

Jim Thompson wrote: [...]

I'm contemplating a GoToMyPC, or PC Anywhere approach. My son says I
don't need any commercial (as in "paid") method, I can do it myself.
Then I could run simulations on my home box, and just read it out via
the notebook.

It won't be fun. The *.raw files spit out by my sims are often well over
30MB.
Naaaah! You view the Probe screen, the .DAT files stay on "old iron"
;-)

How large do they become?

I've had .DAT files as large as 10GB.

But you only need to carry the visual equivalent over the connection.

Ok, but that really slows down the "let's see what the spike through
those diodes over there looks like" business. Unless you happen to enjoy
a connection with low latency. If the location is "take a right at the
cactus behind the dead cow and then another 25 miles in 4WD" that's not
going to be fun. I once had the joy of "broadband" over ISDN and miles
of the singing wires. Ok, ok, we are all spoiled, we should all think
back about the dial-up days.

It was a historical thing... transported back to Caesar's time, etc.
;-)

And then trying to concoct an option trading scheme at the Roman empire
stock exchange and see if it blows up within the same time

 

[Jim Thompson]

Rich Grise wrote:

[DTV]

Disclaimer - I'm about 40 miles from Mount Baldy, which I hear is where
the antennas are, and it's practically line-of-sight.

Different here. The signal has to make it through a cut (west of Bass
Lake Grade) and then it hits two back-to-back ridges. For RF it's almost
like huge tin can with a small hole in there. Reflections of several
hundred usec are normal out here. Analog did just fine under those
conditions, digital stinks. On the analyzer they are all nice square
blocks in the spectrum but the TVs are so far dumbed down that all they
show is "no signal". Even though there's a big fat signal.

Maybe do what I did for FM before I switched to all web-based radio...
aim your antenna at a reflecting object... until Roku I got my FM by
aiming a yagi at the windows of a house south of me and about 75'
higher, to clear the hill north of me.

Tried that, didn't work either

The mast is bolted to the house. I can loosen the bolts and the rotate
by hand, making the aiming job fairly easy. Well, with analog it was.
With the dumbed down digital TVs it ain't. First, you have to wait the
usual several seconds after a channel switch which was instant on
analog. Then the TV shows you zero information on how close the signal
is to a multipath collapse.

Also, and the large signal performance of "modern" TVs is the pits.

Huh? Front-end overload?

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine Sometimes I even put it in the food

 

[Joerg]

Rich Grise wrote: [DTV]


Disclaimer - I'm about 40 miles from Mount Baldy, which I hear is where
the antennas are, and it's practically line-of-sight.

Different here. The signal has to make it through a cut (west of Bass
Lake Grade) and then it hits two back-to-back ridges. For RF it's almost
like huge tin can with a small hole in there. Reflections of several
hundred usec are normal out here. Analog did just fine under those
conditions, digital stinks. On the analyzer they are all nice square
blocks in the spectrum but the TVs are so far dumbed down that all they
show is "no signal". Even though there's a big fat signal.
Maybe do what I did for FM before I switched to all web-based radio...
aim your antenna at a reflecting object... until Roku I got my FM by
aiming a yagi at the windows of a house south of me and about 75'
higher, to clear the hill north of me.

Tried that, didn't work either

The mast is bolted to the house. I can loosen the bolts and the rotate
by hand, making the aiming job fairly easy. Well, with analog it was.
With the dumbed down digital TVs it ain't. First, you have to wait the
usual several seconds after a channel switch which was instant on
analog. Then the TV shows you zero information on how close the signal
is to a multipath collapse.

Also, and the large signal performance of "modern" TVs is the pits.

Huh? Front-end overload?

Not in the distribution amps. A connected PC-controlled radio receiver
never overloads but the TVs and converter boxes do :-(

 

[krw]

For what it's worth, PDF995 looks like a printer to the OS, and
it makes PDFs with selectable text.

PDFCreator looks like a printer, as well. I find it far more
compatible (both with software and "paper size") than any other PDF
writer around.

And it's free, albeit you get a popup and a nag screen each time
you use it.

PDFCreator isn't nagware either.

 

[krw]

krw wrote:
krw wrote:
[...]

Old rule: When only one part on the circuit board is changed in value it
is another assembly and must get another assy number. No ifs, buts or whens.
Sure, that's obvious but it still doesn't solve the schematic problem.
They want schematics for service to use[*]. We're experimenting with
"graying" (yellow, actually) out sections not implemented but it's
manual and quite labor intensive. The other problem we ran into was
that to select any component under the "fill" it has to be removed.
The fill will be selected first.

[*] I'm fighting this one.
I wouldn't fight it. Our coutry needs young technicians to understand to
read schematic.

But the same schematic with grayed out areas for two or more versions? I
wouldn't do that.
The problem is that there is no way to assure the schematics stay in
sync with each other. Everything is a manual and tedious process,
thus prone to error. I don't like adding error prone processes into
the flow.

Oh-oh, that's sound like there isn't a proper ECO process in place.
Maybe that is where some fint-tuning needs to be done first ;-)

Maybe you're not reading what I write (or I'm not writing what I
mean). ;-)

The ECO process is fine. We can build the widgets just fine. The
boss wants schematics to match the different products, built from the
same boards (actually two different revisions, but that is an
unrelated ECO process problem). The schematic reflects the board (max
population). Each of the three products is a make from, off that
schematic, with a different BOM at the higher level. Since the
schematic reflects the max-populated board, which doesn't exist, it's
"too confusing" for service.

Again, it's not an ECO problem. It is a documentation "problem",
since there isn't a schematic that matches the product BOMs. To
generate those schematics would be a labor intensive and error prone
project.

Proper documentation would be a requirement for me to sign on the dotted
line of an ECO. Drove some folks crazy, but ...

If the schematic is clearly marked, for example with dashed lines around
certain areas and some text like "not installed on XYZ version", then
it's ok. Else there has to be a matching schematic even if that means
more work.

It's not the work that I'm worried about. I dont' want any
documentation around that has a chance of not being kept up to date or
worse, being flat wrong. The schematics wouldn't be used in the
engineering or manufacturing processes thus no way to assure that
they're in sync with the documentation that is.

 

[krw]

Actually the laptop I had with me was even better. It could directly run
off a 12V car battery. If you have a large marine deep cycle (which they
all seem to have up there) it'll run for days.

Then you don't need to carry reams of paper. ;-)

 

[Joerg]

PDFCreator looks like a printer, as well. I find it far more
compatible (both with software and "paper size") than any other PDF
writer around.

Yep, works great.

[...]

 

[Joerg]

Jim Thompson wrote:
[snip]
Do OTA digital stations have a choice of modulation scheme?

No, but they picked the ATSC standard with IMHO way too little field
testing. The European DTV system is much more robust in that respect.


I've noticed a decided improvement since OTA digital. I used to have
some bleed-thru from OTA into my cable, causing "ghost" images... some
runs exceed 80' from my distribution amplifier. But that's now
completely gone, because they're now UHF.

Going to UHF was IMHO a serious mistake. When channel 13 was on VHF it
came through, usually with little to no ghosting. Now it's unreliable. I
do not understand how one can give up a VHF channel in trade for a
channel the inferior UHF band. At least not without serious monetary
compensation (which I wouldn't know anything about) or without putting
up a fight.
Your government at its finest ;-)

I had a chat with the station's engineer and his opinion was that UHF
travels through buildings and high-rises better. I guess we lost out to
them flatlanders

And besides, I think the vast majority of urban dwellers in high-rises
will have cable TV anyhow. IMHO it's only a matter of time until folks
on the outskirts hang up on such stations and go to non-local channels
on satellite. Or as the next generation already does, fulfill their
media consumption wishes via the web for news and Netflix for movies.
Then, ad revenue drops, station budgets begin to shrivel up, pink slips
are handed out. <brag_mode> I see that coming, just as I saw the
mortgage bubble burst coming </brag_mode>.

You are not the only who foresaw the mortgage / flip bubble bursting.
It was clear from the nature of the advertised mortgages in 2005. Plus
locally I also saw a previous tight housing market invert at the same
time as many new apartments and new houses were hitting the market
from late 2004 through early 2006 here locally.

It blows my mind that the chairman of the reserve either didn't see it
or preferred to do nothing. It doesn't take much to foresee that the
concept of ARMs and, worse, negative amortization loans is wrong and
dangerous for the country. It also doesn't take much to see that the
competence level of banking managers back then had sunk to a level that
was insufficient. I expect more from a chairman, I expect that he does
the same what a police officer would do if he saw someone entering the
freeway the wrong way.