"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
No Dave, they aren't. The term "phantom power" is used for many
situations where an active device needs powering and only the signal
cable is available. Antenna amplifiers, satellite LNBs, cable
operators' distribution amplifiers and so on, are all routinely
described as being "phantom powered". There are plenty of web
references to the technique of phantom powering in these applications.
Long ago, when I worked in the early days of cable TV, all of our line
amplifiers were powered in this way, and it was always referred to as
phantom powering, both by all of the high-end network engineering bods,
and also our in-house lecturers, responsible for training of all of the
company's engineers.

In fact I would go as far as to say that the technique has been around
and called that for a very long time, and the 'hi-jacking' of the term
by sound engineering to try to mean something very specific, is
actually the questionable use of the phrase.

Phantom powering was first used by the telephone industry long before TV
of any sort. If the cable TV industry - hardly a bastion of good practice
- hijacked it for something which is patently not phantom, they're the
ones that are wrong.


The telephone system was based on the same battery powered model the
early telegraph lines used. In fact, the early hand crank phones used a
local dry cell battery to power the line to the operator's switchboard.
Then there were the 20 and 60 mA teletype circuits where the power to
drive the mechanical decoder was remote powered over the data lines. It
is an obvious technology, being used by quite a few fields. As usual,
some group wants to claim to be the 'One true prophet' for their phony
religion.

--
And another motherboard bites the dust!