On Sun, 7 Feb 2016 12:11:35 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:
"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 6 Feb 2016 23:21:08 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:
"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 6 Feb 2016 15:38:04 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:
"Ignoramus14059" wrote in
message ...
On 2016-02-06, Jim Wilkins wrote:
I often look at all that stuff, and I find extreme ingenuity
with
which people overcame limitations of their current technologies,
it
is
fascinating.
i
Tbe one that impresses me most is the old analog telephone which
does
everything over two wires without active electronics, only one
very
clever transformer, speaker and carbon mike. I couldn't quickly
find
a
circuit description and should return to fixing my fallen TV
antenna
that had me abseiling down the snow-covered roof.
It's a good thing you were strung up.
I hadn't practiced a Dulfersitz in decades.
Abseiling I knew, after having to look it up last year when my niece
and new nephew went to Gnu Zealand for spelunking and Middle
Earthing.
They had a blast. I had to look up Dulfersitz, and it definitely
does
not look like something I'd try in anything but an emergency. If
you
slipped, you'd likely lose control of the rope and fall.
P.S: Doesn't anyone say "rappelling" any more?
Rappeler is French for recall, as in recalling the doubled rope from
the bottom. Maybe French has lost its cachet of exclusiveness to
German? Have you seen any French competition to Audi, BMW or Mercedes
recently?
Wednesday the forecast was for 10-20MPH winds, not the howling gale
that blew the TV antenna down. Thursday I replaced the bent mast
section, then Friday the predicted few inches of light snow clung to
the guy lines and pulled it down again, and this time it smacked the
roof HARD right over me.
Time for a new mast system, wot? Better yet, Repent!, and TV no
more.
I'm going on 11 years without it now. Netflix and Redbox give me
the
movie fixes I need, but I haven't suffered through brainless
broadcast
TV or the massively stupid and numerous commercials for over a
decade.
The only commercials I actively seek are those for the Stupor Bowl,
and even then, at millions a pop, they put some stupid one on. The
money spent on sports and commercials each year would be enough, in
one single year, to -feed- and -house- the homeless and hungry poor
in
America (even those who don't deserve it), and probably a few dozen
other countries. Too bad so few people have this perspective.
(Sorry, it just slipped out.)
TVs do have an OFF switch, you know, for those of us with the self
control to use it. Mine is mainly my best source of up-to-date local
news and weather. Until I decide how to reengineer the insulators in a
material with different properties I can use Boston weather forecasts,
that antenna wasn't damaged.
I used to tell TV haters that they were missing good material on PBS
but it no longer has much that interests me.
Yeah, PBS died, SciFi Channel died, History Channel got out of date,
Nature got a new persona which SUCKS BIGTIME. In essence, there are
five hundred channels with nothing but bull**** on them. Reality
programs which have nothing real in them, movies with no actors or
plots, etc. As for news people, they all sound the same (with the
emPHASis on the wrong sylLABBles) and give you their opinions, not the
news. Cronkite is rolling over in his grave. I used to like that rat
******* Peter Jennings until I realized how Liberally skewed his
broadcasts were. Then I saw the TEEVEE bigwigs put him up on stage
fifteen minutes after 9/11. The Bigs forgot to give him -any- news
whatsoever to divulge and he muttered for 45 minutes with the ten
words of news they did give him. It was one of the last straws for me
with TV. I have much better uses for $90/month. (I used to get the
digital music channels, but no longer listen to much music.)
There are 5 oak insulator blanks sitting on the milling machine to
be
completed tomorrow. I made one to replace the first fall's damage,
boiled it in wax to drive out the water and seal it, and didn't lose
any signal strength from it.
Whuffo? Doesn't good cable preclude the need? Or are you
insulating
the mast from something? I don't recall having heard about this.
Or
are you the poor sod who was blessed with an overly lightningized
environment? If so, would oak insulators even help? A million
volt,
million amp spark which jumps thousands of feet of air in an instant
is pretty hard to protect from, innit? Just sayin...
These insulators support the two sections of the dipoles without
letting them short to each other or the metal supporting structure.
The radio waves picked up from the air appear as a tiny voltage
between the inner ends.
http://www.hottconsultants.com/pdf_files/dipoles-1.pdf
Oh, OK. Most of us didn't make our own TV antennas. g
OK, two poles, 5 insulators...so, which one sags?
--
I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people
who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.
-- Anna Quindlen