"Vir Campestris" wrote in message
news
On 24/06/2017 11:14, NY wrote:
The fact that NICAM was 14 bit with only the most significant 11 bits
being transmitted - so for loud sounds that was the most significant 11
bits, for quiet sounds where the top three bits were zero, they
transmitted the least significant bits, and there were a few intermediate
stages; the same gain setting was used for a block of several (32?)
samples. IIRC no compression was used so effectively it was like a CD but
with only 11 instead of 16 bits.

It's better than CD type (raw PCM) at 11 bits. CD has to have the disc
mastered so the largest signals are full scale, and for a lot of music the
quietest bits are _lots_ quieter than that. 20dB is hardly rare, and
that's 6 bits gone straight away that will be all zeroes in the quiet
bits. It's the loud stuff where the quality would suffer.

I'd have thought that with uncompanded raw PCM (like a CD) with 11 bits, it
would be the *quiet* sections where you would notice the quantisation noise.
With 11 bits total, you are mapping the maximum sound into 11 rather 16
bits, and adjusting the gain accordingly. In your example where the top 6
bits are 0, you've 5 bits of useful signal, whereas with 16-bit true CD,
you've got 10 bits. So the waveform of a quiet instrument can only take one
of 2^5 = 32 different values - ie -16 to +16. With 10 bits, you've got 2^10
= 1024 different values - ie -512 to +512.

Quantisation makes the sound gritty and metallic. It's the audible
equivalent of representing a continuous black-to-white gradient in a picture
as a series of different steps - a continuous slope becomes a staircase.

On 24/06/2017 11:45, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 24/06/2017 10:18, dennis@home wrote:
On 23/06/2017 23:44, Steve Walker wrote:
On 23/06/2017 09:09, wrote:
On Friday, 23 June 2017 00:49:11 UTC+1, Steve Walker wrote:
I think it was only in the '80s that they changed the tone received by
an operator from a payphone - until then they could not tell them from
private phones and people had learned that you could make free reverse
charges calls *to* phoneboxes.

This was because the 1980s GPO/BT owned all the payphones and knew
which lines were coinbox lines. It was possible to make reverse
charge calls to a payphone because the operator could ask the person
at the payphone to insert money to pay for the call (and on the old
Button A/B boxes listen to the separate 'dings' for sixpences and
shillings).

When private payphones were introduced they were connected to
ordinary lines so the operators had to have some means of knowing a
payphone was connected, hence the 'cuckoo' tone.

Owain

Well BT didn't use their knowledge well, as people were making such
calls without the operators catching on from what I remember

SteveW

It wasn't BT's problem, they just billed the calls to the line renter.
The renter could have incoming calls blocked if it was a problem.

In the case of a red phone box BT (or rather, the Post Office) owned them.

Andy

They weren't the private ones then though.

On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 14:47:26 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Jim GM4DHJ ... wrote:
Internet and DAB both take an age to get going. The big advantage of the
simple AM/FM transistor radio is that it runs a long time on batteries.

as the advert SHOULD say.... if you love radio don't buy a DAB .......

Another black and white type.

I have DAB in the car. In general, *reception* is far superior to AM or FM
in the SE of England.

It's very interesting to ask a DAB hater to tell which recording he is
listening to of something simulcast on DAB and FM. Provided you sync them
up and match the levels.

I did just that with a chunk of R2 from FM, DAB and FreeView. A panel of
10 'experts' gave almost entirely random results. But I'd guess even they
might have heard a difference with AM.

Jim's was just an off the cuff remark, he didn't even say what was
wrong with DAB in his opinion, perhaps it was power consumption, I
mean how long does your DAB portable run for on a PP3?

--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

On 22 Jun 2017 18:15:52 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 18:56:20 +0100, Max Demian wrote:

On 22/06/2017 09:46, Chris Green wrote:
Graeme wrote:
In message ,
writes

And being told to put the radio on at 5 to 1 for the 1 o'clock news -
it needed time to 'warm up'.

10 to 1, otherwise you'd miss the shipping forecast

Many of our 'radios' (internet, etc.) take just as long to start up.
Give me a 'tranny' any day.

Mains valve radios were up and running in 20 seconds.

Battery ones were even faster. Typically using the D?9? valves, they had
filaments that doubled as cathodes, which helped quite a bit.

My single valve shortwave set using a 1T4 (DF91) warmed up almost
instantaneously, Less than one second, and you could hear the thermal
stress of the heater in the cans.


--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

On Fri, 23 Jun 2017 00:49:10 +0100, Steve Walker
wrote:

On 22/06/2017 18:59, Max Demian wrote:
On 22/06/2017 08:26, wrote:
On Thursday, 22 June 2017 08:17:08 UTC+1, DerbyBorn wrote:
Remember trying to improve an old TV by adjusting the Convergenece
Controls.
I recall, my old Murphy had about 20 potentiometers and other
ajustements.

Probably lots of them conveniently close to tingly high voltage bits.

I remember when all the 2ps we'd saved for the telephone became
useless as the telephone got changed to 5ps and 10ps. (This was of
course the telephone box down the road -- we didn't have one in the
house.)

When STD coin box phones came in, they took threepenny bits, sixpences
and shillings. They soon blocked up the threepenny slot, so doubling the
cost of short local calls.

I think it was only in the '80s that they changed the tone received by
an operator from a payphone - until then they could not tell them from
private phones and people had learned that you could make free reverse
charges calls *to* phoneboxes.

SteveW

"Cuckoo tone"
--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 11:56:05 +0100, Graham. wrote:

On 22 Jun 2017 18:15:52 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 18:56:20 +0100, Max Demian wrote:

On 22/06/2017 09:46, Chris Green wrote:
Graeme wrote:
In message ,
writes

And being told to put the radio on at 5 to 1 for the 1 o'clock news
-
it needed time to 'warm up'.

10 to 1, otherwise you'd miss the shipping forecast

Many of our 'radios' (internet, etc.) take just as long to start up.
Give me a 'tranny' any day.

Mains valve radios were up and running in 20 seconds.

Battery ones were even faster. Typically using the D?9? valves, they had
filaments that doubled as cathodes, which helped quite a bit.

My single valve shortwave set using a 1T4 (DF91) warmed up almost
instantaneously, Less than one second, and you could hear the thermal
stress of the heater in the cans.

Yep. As I said, the D series were filament cathodes. 1.5v.



--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

On Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:18:34 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

On 23/06/2017 23:44, Steve Walker wrote:
On 23/06/2017 09:09, wrote:
On Friday, 23 June 2017 00:49:11 UTC+1, Steve Walker wrote:
I think it was only in the '80s that they changed the tone received by
an operator from a payphone - until then they could not tell them from
private phones and people had learned that you could make free reverse
charges calls *to* phoneboxes.

This was because the 1980s GPO/BT owned all the payphones and knew
which lines were coinbox lines. It was possible to make reverse charge
calls to a payphone because the operator could ask the person at the
payphone to insert money to pay for the call (and on the old Button
A/B boxes listen to the separate 'dings' for sixpences and shillings).

When private payphones were introduced they were connected to ordinary
lines so the operators had to have some means of knowing a payphone
was connected, hence the 'cuckoo' tone.

Owain

Well BT didn't use their knowledge well, as people were making such
calls without the operators catching on from what I remember

SteveW

It wasn't BT's problem, they just billed the calls to the line renter.
The renter could have incoming calls blocked if it was a problem.

That's correct, BT had no incentive not to bill the user for these
calls, remember when implemented, the payphone itself generated the
cuckoo tones when any of the allowed operator codes 1xx was dialled.

I actually discovered an exploit on the Landis+Gyr Agifon 50, and I
even brought it to the attention of the manufactures.
It had to have the original old firmware
The phone had to be set up for LD dialling

As I recall it went like this, the hookswitch was reasonably protected
with a delay so you couldn't "tap-dial" but in some exchanges with a
little practice you could use the hookswitch to dial a single "1"
you then dialled 0072 on the keypad normally.

The *exchange* would see 10072 which would of course connect you with
the operator (the 72 would be ignored of course).
The *phone* however would think 0072 had been dialled and that was at
one time a prefix for a toll free radipaging service, and the phones
firmware treated it the same as 0800 0500 0808, so no cuckoo tone!


--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

In article ,
Graham. wrote:
On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 14:47:26 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Jim GM4DHJ ... wrote:
Internet and DAB both take an age to get going. The big advantage
of the simple AM/FM transistor radio is that it runs a long time
on batteries.

as the advert SHOULD say.... if you love radio don't buy a DAB
.......

Another black and white type.

I have DAB in the car. In general, *reception* is far superior to AM or
FM in the SE of England.

It's very interesting to ask a DAB hater to tell which recording he is
listening to of something simulcast on DAB and FM. Provided you sync
them up and match the levels.

I did just that with a chunk of R2 from FM, DAB and FreeView. A panel
of 10 'experts' gave almost entirely random results. But I'd guess even
they might have heard a difference with AM.

Jim's was just an off the cuff remark, he didn't even say what was wrong
with DAB in his opinion, perhaps it was power consumption, I mean how
long does your DAB portable run for on a PP3?

'if you love radio don't buy a DAB ....... ' seems pretty clear to me.

I don't have any portable radios in use in this house. Just one I take
with me when staying elsewhere. So small enough to fit in the luggage. But
not one which runs from a PP3. Very expensive source of battery power.

--
*Black holes are where God divided by zero *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Fri, 23 Jun 2017 13:58:50 +0100, Max Demian
wrote:

On 23/06/2017 11:52, Terry Casey wrote:
In article
,
says...

When STD coin box phones came in, they took threepenny bits, sixpences
and shillings. They soon blocked up the threepenny slot, so doubling the
cost of short local calls.

Soon?????

I lived in Grays in Essex. In 1955, the manual Tilbury
exchange (which was actually located in Grays!) was being
replaced by a new automatic exchange (and Grays got its own
exchange for the first time).

There was an exhibition in the main Post Office
demonstrating the new STD system we were to have, with
phones that you could use to dial up various test numbers in
various places in Britain.

Thus, I think, we were probably about the first exchange to
have the new STD phone boxes. They continued to accept
threepenny bits until around 1964/5, so around 10 years.

I mean the ones where you put the coin in when connected as opposed to
the old button A/B type.

I am sure Terry was referring to the "Pay on answer" equipment, it was
intraduced as early as 1958
--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 12:43:53 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

'if you love radio don't buy a DAB ....... ' seems pretty clear to me.

I don't have any portable radios in use in this house. Just one I take
with me when staying elsewhere. So small enough to fit in the luggage.
But not one which runs from a PP3. Very expensive source of battery
power.

I have one of these - which isn't DAB, and costs peanuts to run. I paid
less than 50 quid for it, and had the batteries anyway.

https://goo.gl/vB1aMi

--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

On Fri, 23 Jun 2017 12:31:02 +0100, The Other Mike
wrote:

On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 17:30:12 +0100, "NY" wrote:

I remember in the early 1970s my friend's parents had a Hitachi colour TV
and it had a tint control (we had fun tweaking it just before his granddad
wanted to watch the snooker!). I understand that Hitachi didn't pay the
royalty to use a genuine PAL decoder and converted PAL to NTSC and then used
an NTSC decoder (or something like that).


The Sony 18 inch from that era also had something similar but they called it a
hue control. It also had a shedload of wirewrapping between boards rather than
using connectors.

On a Bush 26 inch from the mid 70's you removed the back and a panel could be
swung up which had all the setting up adjustments in sequence complete with
instructions.

Nearly all of the delta-gun sets had that arrangement. The Philips G8
had them under an oversized plastic speaker grille which was fixed by
a single screw hidden by a nameplate beneath the grill.
--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

no-one broadcasts 405 so not much point. It was similarly pointless pre-82 for different reasons.

Except when you have a vintage TV and you would like to see it
working.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9b7_x0g0uM&t=19s

All done with a PC with a suitable display card (an old ATI Radeon HD
2400 in my case), a piece of software called WinModelines
http://www.geocities.ws/podernixie/h...deline-en.html

and a home made VHF modulator, I'm using this design
http://www.earlytelevision.org/405_modulator.html


Most poeple use an Arora 625 to 405 digital converter which costs
about £200 and is far less flexable.



--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

On 22 Jun 2017 11:03:27 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 11:04:58 +0100, Brian Gaff wrote:

One of the fun devices was an electtron gun tube rejuvenator. When one
of the colours was so low emission it really needed a new tube ten mins
on this gadget seems to make it last at least another 6 months!

I used similar devices back in the 1960s. I had a weekend/summer job with
Technical Trading in Brighton. They used to sell cut price valves.

They bought large quantities of used valves. We tested them using Mullard
valve testers (the ones with big punched paxolin cards for each valve
type, to select voltages and tests). If OK, we cleaned them off and
relabelled them by printing on the side.

If they had low emission, they went into an RF coil that would ignite
what was left of the getter. That usually got them to pass the test.


Technical Trading in Brighton, now there's a blast from the past. I
can remember avidly waiting foe a parcel from TT when I was a
schoolkid, but, I can't remember what it was.
There always seemed to be an intervening Bank Holiday to extend the
suspense, when I ordered something interesting.


--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

In article ,
Graham. wrote:
Nearly all of the delta-gun sets had that arrangement. The Philips G8
had them under an oversized plastic speaker grille which was fixed by
a single screw hidden by a nameplate beneath the grill.

As did its predecessor, the G6. A wondrous piece of over engineered
electronics. Partially, at least.

--
*Organized Crime Is Alive And Well; It's Called Auto Insurance.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 25 Jun 2017 12:44:25 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 12:43:53 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

'if you love radio don't buy a DAB ....... ' seems pretty clear to me.

I don't have any portable radios in use in this house. Just one I take
with me when staying elsewhere. So small enough to fit in the luggage.
But not one which runs from a PP3. Very expensive source of battery
power.

I have one of these - which isn't DAB, and costs peanuts to run. I paid
less than 50 quid for it, and had the batteries anyway.

https://goo.gl/vB1aMi

A wireless wireless, what ever next ;-)
--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

"Graham." wrote in message
...
On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 14:47:26 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Jim GM4DHJ ... wrote:
Internet and DAB both take an age to get going. The big advantage of
the
simple AM/FM transistor radio is that it runs a long time on
batteries.

as the advert SHOULD say.... if you love radio don't buy a DAB .......

Another black and white type.

I have DAB in the car. In general, *reception* is far superior to AM or FM
in the SE of England.

It's very interesting to ask a DAB hater to tell which recording he is
listening to of something simulcast on DAB and FM. Provided you sync them
up and match the levels.

I did just that with a chunk of R2 from FM, DAB and FreeView. A panel of
10 'experts' gave almost entirely random results. But I'd guess even they
might have heard a difference with AM.

Jim's was just an off the cuff remark, he didn't even say what was
wrong with DAB in his opinion, perhaps it was power consumption, I
mean how long does your DAB portable run for on a PP3?

yes battery consumption is **** awful whereas my Cokoa pn-204 runs for weeks
on six AA batteries...

https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/i...7640282e4a.jpg

I have DAB and stand alone internet radios coming out of my ears but I
prefer the Russian MW/LW any day.....

"Jim GM4DHJ ..." wrote in message
news

"Graham." wrote in message
...
On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 14:47:26 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Jim GM4DHJ ... wrote:
Internet and DAB both take an age to get going. The big advantage of
the
simple AM/FM transistor radio is that it runs a long time on
batteries.

as the advert SHOULD say.... if you love radio don't buy a DAB .......

Another black and white type.

I have DAB in the car. In general, *reception* is far superior to AM or
FM
in the SE of England.

It's very interesting to ask a DAB hater to tell which recording he is
listening to of something simulcast on DAB and FM. Provided you sync them
up and match the levels.

I did just that with a chunk of R2 from FM, DAB and FreeView. A panel of
10 'experts' gave almost entirely random results. But I'd guess even they
might have heard a difference with AM.

Jim's was just an off the cuff remark, he didn't even say what was
wrong with DAB in his opinion, perhaps it was power consumption, I
mean how long does your DAB portable run for on a PP3?

yes battery consumption is **** awful whereas my Cokoa pn-204 runs for
weeks on six AA batteries...

https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/i...7640282e4a.jpg

I have DAB and stand alone internet radios coming out of my ears but I
prefer the Russian MW/LW any day.....


not to mention I got two for a pound each brand new and boxed at a Glasgow
car boot sale.......complete with the smell of fullers earth ...Mmmmmmm

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 14:53:31 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Graham. wrote:
Nearly all of the delta-gun sets had that arrangement. The Philips G8
had them under an oversized plastic speaker grille which was fixed by
a single screw hidden by a nameplate beneath the grill.

As did its predecessor, the G6. A wondrous piece of over engineered
electronics. Partially, at least.

The G6 was my worst nightmare to repair. My favourite set of all time
was the Decca Bradford chassis and its derivatives, partially because
it was the first colour set I ever owned.
--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

In article ,
Jim GM4DHJ ... wrote:
https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/i...7640282e4a.jpg

I have DAB and stand alone internet radios coming out of my ears but I
prefer the Russian MW/LW any day.....

Explains rather a lot. Nice mellow tone from AM. Who needs anything over
4kHz.

--
*I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Graham. wrote:
On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 14:53:31 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Graham. wrote:
Nearly all of the delta-gun sets had that arrangement. The Philips G8
had them under an oversized plastic speaker grille which was fixed by
a single screw hidden by a nameplate beneath the grill.

As did its predecessor, the G6. A wondrous piece of over engineered
electronics. Partially, at least.

The G6 was my worst nightmare to repair.

True - but nothing a few new valves wouldn't sort, normally. But it did
have an excellent picture when set up properly.

My favourite set of all time
was the Decca Bradford chassis and its derivatives, partially because
it was the first colour set I ever owned.

I kept the G6 going until the early 80s - mainly because the cabinet
suited by room. Then gutted the set and fitted a Philips Matchline in the
cabinet. Which lasted until decent widescreen became affordable - and the
changeover to digital.

--
*What was the best thing before sliced bread?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Sunday, 25 June 2017 12:36:27 UTC+1, Graham. wrote:
On Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:18:34 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

Well BT didn't use their knowledge well, as people were making such
calls without the operators catching on from what I remember

SteveW

It wasn't BT's problem, they just billed the calls to the line renter.
The renter could have incoming calls blocked if it was a problem.

That's correct, BT had no incentive not to bill the user for these
calls, remember when implemented, the payphone itself generated the
cuckoo tones when any of the allowed operator codes 1xx was dialled.

I actually discovered an exploit on the Landis+Gyr Agifon 50, and I
even brought it to the attention of the manufactures.
It had to have the original old firmware
The phone had to be set up for LD dialling

As I recall it went like this, the hookswitch was reasonably protected
with a delay so you couldn't "tap-dial" but in some exchanges with a
little practice you could use the hookswitch to dial a single "1"
you then dialled 0072 on the keypad normally.

The *exchange* would see 10072 which would of course connect you with
the operator (the 72 would be ignored of course).
The *phone* however would think 0072 had been dialled and that was at
one time a prefix for a toll free radipaging service, and the phones
firmware treated it the same as 0800 0500 0808, so no cuckoo tone!

Payphone security in the 80s was hopeless. If the internet had existed BT would have had to shut the whole payphone network down.


NT

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 14:56:52 +0100, Graham. wrote:

On 25 Jun 2017 12:44:25 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 12:43:53 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

'if you love radio don't buy a DAB ....... ' seems pretty clear to me.

I don't have any portable radios in use in this house. Just one I take
with me when staying elsewhere. So small enough to fit in the luggage.
But not one which runs from a PP3. Very expensive source of battery
power.

I have one of these - which isn't DAB, and costs peanuts to run. I paid
less than 50 quid for it, and had the batteries anyway.

https://goo.gl/vB1aMi

A wireless wireless, what ever next ;-)

Well, it has a mains unit stashed in the back if one wants to use it. And
a line-in cable. And Bluetooth, with a place to stash the phone.



--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 14:45:47 +0100, Graham. wrote:

On 22 Jun 2017 11:03:27 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 11:04:58 +0100, Brian Gaff wrote:

One of the fun devices was an electtron gun tube rejuvenator. When one
of the colours was so low emission it really needed a new tube ten
mins on this gadget seems to make it last at least another 6 months!

I used similar devices back in the 1960s. I had a weekend/summer job
with Technical Trading in Brighton. They used to sell cut price valves.

They bought large quantities of used valves. We tested them using
Mullard valve testers (the ones with big punched paxolin cards for each
valve type, to select voltages and tests). If OK, we cleaned them off
and relabelled them by printing on the side.

If they had low emission, they went into an RF coil that would ignite
what was left of the getter. That usually got them to pass the test.


Technical Trading in Brighton, now there's a blast from the past. I can
remember avidly waiting foe a parcel from TT when I was a schoolkid,
but, I can't remember what it was.
There always seemed to be an intervening Bank Holiday to extend the
suspense, when I ordered something interesting.

I packed a lot of those parcels..



--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

On Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:34:49 UTC+1, Graham. wrote:

no-one broadcasts 405 so not much point. It was similarly pointless pre-82 for different reasons.

Except when you have a vintage TV and you would like to see it
working.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9b7_x0g0uM&t=19s

All done with a PC with a suitable display card (an old ATI Radeon HD
2400 in my case), a piece of software called WinModelines
http://www.geocities.ws/podernixie/h...deline-en.html

and a home made VHF modulator, I'm using this design
http://www.earlytelevision.org/405_modulator.html


Most poeple use an Arora 625 to 405 digital converter which costs
about £200 and is far less flexable.

I have a 1950s tv, and I still see broadcasting 405 as pointless. A VCR or anything else with baseband output can be hooked to the tuner output easier & quicker than getting a 405 tx. I daresay it's different if you have a whole collection of the things.


NT

On 25/06/2017 15:42, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:


I kept the G6 going until the early 80s - mainly because the cabinet
suited by room. Then gutted the set and fitted a Philips Matchline in the
cabinet. Which lasted until decent widescreen became affordable - and the
changeover to digital.


Then you made the cabinet into a fish tank?

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Jim GM4DHJ ... wrote:
https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/i...7640282e4a.jpg

I have DAB and stand alone internet radios coming out of my ears but I
prefer the Russian MW/LW any day.....

Explains rather a lot. Nice mellow tone from AM. Who needs anything over
4kHz.

just a pity there is so much fitba on mw and cricket on lw ........

On 22/06/2017 08:26, wrote:
On Thursday, 22 June 2017 08:17:08 UTC+1, DerbyBorn wrote:
Remember trying to improve an old TV by adjusting the Convergenece
Controls.
I recall, my old Murphy had about 20 potentiometers and other ajustements.

Probably lots of them conveniently close to tingly high voltage bits.

I remember when all the 2ps we'd saved for the telephone became useless as the telephone got changed to
5ps and 10ps. (This was of course the telephone box down the road --
we didn't have one in the house.)

I always check my change for non-ferrous 1p and 2p pieces and save them.

Sometimes they come in handy, like making up a couple of non-corrodable
washers to hold the toilet cystern to the wall ( the two inside and
permanently damp.).

The ferrous ones I cast adrift on the South Downs where ever the
detectorists have been skulking. Makes their day.

On 22/06/2017 09:46, Chris Green wrote:
Graeme wrote:
In message ,
writes

And being told to put the radio on at 5 to 1 for the 1 o'clock news -
it needed time to 'warm up'.

10 to 1, otherwise you'd miss the shipping forecast :-)

Many of our 'radios' (internet, etc.) take just as long to start up.
Give me a 'tranny' any day.


525 Millwatts of power for 64 bits of memory.(No, not K, M or G).

http://www.cpushack.com/2017/06/20/i...ipolar-memory/

On 22/06/2017 14:47, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Jim GM4DHJ ... wrote:
Internet and DAB both take an age to get going. The big advantage of the
simple AM/FM transistor radio is that it runs a long time on batteries.

as the advert SHOULD say.... if you love radio don't buy a DAB .......

Another black and white type.

I have DAB in the car. In general, *reception* is far superior to AM or FM
in the SE of England.

Until you go south of Horsham when it it is bubbly mud, as it is
in many places away from big towns and a bit hilly.

FM just works.

"Andrew" wrote in message
news
On 22/06/2017 08:26, wrote:
On Thursday, 22 June 2017 08:17:08 UTC+1, DerbyBorn wrote:
Remember trying to improve an old TV by adjusting the Convergenece
Controls.
I recall, my old Murphy had about 20 potentiometers and other
ajustements.

Probably lots of them conveniently close to tingly high voltage bits.

I remember when all the 2ps we'd saved for the telephone became useless
as the telephone got changed to
5ps and 10ps. (This was of course the telephone box down the road --
we didn't have one in the house.)

I always check my change for non-ferrous 1p and 2p pieces and save them.

Sometimes they come in handy, like making up a couple of non-corrodable
washers to hold the toilet cystern to the wall ( the two inside and
permanently damp.).

The ferrous ones I cast adrift on the South Downs where ever the
detectorists have been skulking. Makes their day.

didn't know that ....thanks

http://blog.royalmint.com/why-are-so...oins-magnetic/

"Andrew" wrote in message
news
On 22/06/2017 14:47, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Jim GM4DHJ ... wrote:
Internet and DAB both take an age to get going. The big advantage of
the
simple AM/FM transistor radio is that it runs a long time on batteries.

as the advert SHOULD say.... if you love radio don't buy a DAB .......

Another black and white type.

I have DAB in the car. In general, *reception* is far superior to AM or
FM
in the SE of England.

Until you go south of Horsham when it it is bubbly mud, as it is
in many places away from big towns and a bit hilly.

FM just works.

DAB in the car is a joke in Scotland...you need LW ......

In article ,
Andrew wrote:
On 22/06/2017 14:47, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Jim GM4DHJ ... wrote:
Internet and DAB both take an age to get going. The big advantage of the
simple AM/FM transistor radio is that it runs a long time on batteries.

as the advert SHOULD say.... if you love radio don't buy a DAB .......

Another black and white type.

I have DAB in the car. In general, *reception* is far superior to AM
or FM in the SE of England.

Until you go south of Horsham when it it is bubbly mud, as it is in many
places away from big towns and a bit hilly.

FM just works.

You jest, I assume?

Drove from SW London to Billingshurst to look at a car. Listened to R4 DAB
the whole way - rock solid.

Brought the car, and on collecting it listened to R4 FM on the way back.
Continual fluffing for the first half of the journey. Pretty useless.

But as with all such things, you do need a decent aerial. My DAB one is -
the FM one on the 'new' car I've no idea. Except that the sound system is
a very expensive factory option.

--
*When the chips are down, the buffalo is empty*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Jim GM4DHJ ... wrote:
Until you go south of Horsham when it it is bubbly mud, as it is
in many places away from big towns and a bit hilly.

FM just works.

DAB in the car is a joke in Scotland...you need LW ......

Making FM a joke too?
Pity they don't make LW phones for some of Scotland.

FM was never designed for mobile reception. DAB specifically was. Of
course with any transmission system you need adequate coverage. And that
is easier to achieve with DAB.

--
*A closed mouth gathers no feet.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Jim GM4DHJ ..." wrote in message
news
I always check my change for non-ferrous 1p and 2p pieces and save them.

Sometimes they come in handy, like making up a couple of non-corrodable
washers to hold the toilet cystern to the wall ( the two inside and
permanently damp.).

The ferrous ones I cast adrift on the South Downs where ever the
detectorists have been skulking. Makes their day.

didn't know that ....thanks

http://blog.royalmint.com/why-are-so...oins-magnetic/

I knew that the "copper" coins were changed a couple of decades ago, but I
didn't know that the "silver" coins had also been changed.

On Monday, 26 June 2017 11:13:17 UTC+1, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Jim GM4DHJ ... wrote:
Until you go south of Horsham when it it is bubbly mud, as it is
in many places away from big towns and a bit hilly.

FM just works.

DAB in the car is a joke in Scotland...you need LW ......

Making FM a joke too?
Pity they don't make LW phones for some of Scotland.

FM was never designed for mobile reception. DAB specifically was. Of
course with any transmission system you need adequate coverage. And that
is easier to achieve with DAB.

FM is a 1930s invention, and is an expanded analogue format. DAB is something entirely different and far higher tech. But the massive technical differences aren't all that determine which works best.


NT

In article ,
Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Dave Plowman (News)
wrote:

Brought the car, and on collecting it listened to R4 FM on the way back.
Continual fluffing for the first half of the journey. Pretty useless.

Doesn't it retune all by itself?

Yes. RDS. But in hilly country FM can give problems. Even in the SE of
England where they call them downs rather than ups. ;-)

It's interesting to drive through London with all the high rise stuff
around now. FM can be pretty dreadful. Multi-path reception. DAB makes a
virtue out of multi-path.

--
*If you can't see my mirrors, I'm doing my hair*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

wrote in message
...
FM is a 1930s invention, and is an expanded analogue format. DAB is
something entirely different and far higher tech. But the massive
technical differences aren't all that determine which works best.

DAB, being digital, has the *potential* for delivering excellent
interference-free sound of CD quality. But, as with so much digital
technology, everything is in the implementation - because DAB and digital TV
use lossy compression, broadcasters have the choice over how far they turn
down the quality in order to fit more stations into the resource that they
have paid for. And (IMHO) they sometimes turn it down too far.

In the case of DAB, there is also the need to supply a good signal. If the
signal deteriorates a bit below perfect, there will probably be no audible
effect (whereas for analogue forms, especially those involving AM, you might
get more hiss). For digital, if you decrease the signal level further
(especially if there is a neighbouring signal that becomes stronger relative
to the one you want) you will suddenly reach a point (the "digital cliff")
at which reception falls off suddenly.

I imagine it is the sudden fall-off which causes the "bubbling mud" noise.
I've never heard it because the only times I've used a DAB radio in a car,
reception has been good.


FM reception near me is very poor. It may be partly that my car radio aerial
is not as good as it was (cable fault or aerial pre-amp fault) but BBC
stations towards the low end of the FM band (ie R4, R3 and R4) are very
fluttery whereas Classic FM and BBC/commercial local stations in the middle
and the top of the band are fine.

At first I thought it was RDS that was not switching to a stronger signal,
but when I rescan (having stopped the car!) there *is* no stronger signal.
Where I live (east of York) the strongest BBC FM is from all the way from
Holme Moss, rather than from my local TV transmitter, Bilsdale, because that
has a polar diagram than aims the signal northwards.

This is something that I've only noticed for the past few months, so it
looks like a fault (presumably at my end) that has only recently developed.

In article ,
wrote:
On Monday, 26 June 2017 11:13:17 UTC+1, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Jim GM4DHJ ... wrote:
Until you go south of Horsham when it it is bubbly mud, as it is
in many places away from big towns and a bit hilly.

FM just works.

DAB in the car is a joke in Scotland...you need LW ......

Making FM a joke too?
Pity they don't make LW phones for some of Scotland.

FM was never designed for mobile reception. DAB specifically was. Of
course with any transmission system you need adequate coverage. And
that is easier to achieve with DAB.

FM is a 1930s invention, and is an expanded analogue format. DAB is
something entirely different and far higher tech. But the massive
technical differences aren't all that determine which works best.

DAB certainly suffered from being a solution to a problem the vast
majority of the public didn't worry about. Especially as it arrived after
being able to play your own choices of music in a car were becoming so
much easier. And like any transmission system relies on an adequate
signal strength.

--
*I'm already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
NY wrote:
FM reception near me is very poor. It may be partly that my car radio
aerial is not as good as it was (cable fault or aerial pre-amp fault)
but BBC stations towards the low end of the FM band (ie R4, R3 and R4)
are very fluttery whereas Classic FM and BBC/commercial local stations
in the middle and the top of the band are fine.

Yup. Before condemning one transmission medium over another, you need to
establish a level playing field.

I spent considerably more on a DAB, FM and AM aerial (from a local
Wandsworth firm) for the old Rover than many spend on a complete ICE
system. It has individual head amps for DAB and FM, With separate
downleads to both. The FM and AM are combined as usual.

Other car - and the one before it - had aerials you couldn't see. In
screen or whatever. And both much worse reception than with the roof
aerial on the Rover, despite the BMW using diversity reception for FM.

The DAB one supplied with my aftermarket DAB radio was a horrible looking
screen one which worked as well as it looked.

Oddly, I've been using a portable radio recently at home. While decorating
outside. And as expected moving around beside it causes the signal to come
and go on FM. With the transmitter aerial clearly visible from the top of
the house - about 5 miles away.

Those who think FM a perfect system for mobile or portable use clearly
have very different ears to me.

--
*The more I learn about women, the more I love my car

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 26/06/2017 14:27, NY wrote:
DAB, being digital, has the *potential* for delivering excellent
interference-free sound of CD quality. But, as with so much digital
technology, everything is in the implementation - because DAB and
digital TV use lossy compression, broadcasters have the choice over how
far they turn down the quality in order to fit more stations into the
resource that they have paid for. And (IMHO) they sometimes turn it down
too far.

Sometimes?

IMHO it's always. There are audible artefacts on DAB, and visible ones
on TV.

Andy