Dumbed down consumer electronics: Adding DTV channels

[mike]

Just curious: Why is it that "modern" TV/VCR/DVD devices only allow
auto-scan for DTV channels but no "add some later"? As most of us know
DTV is unreliable, meaning sometimes channel 6-1 pixelates out,
sometimes 58-2 is gone. So upon setup it will only catch the ones that
are currently receivable, which in our case is never more than 80% of
digital channels. Changes all the time.

But you can't add, it does a complete new setup, upon which Murphy says
it'll miss a few channels it had detected on the previous run. That I
find a rather daft technical decision. Is it just me thinking that or is
the cleverness in electronics designs really taking a nose-dive?

Sorry for the rant, but I had to let it out.

Particularly bothersome if you have to change the antenna direction
to get some of the stations. No way to get them all, even if they're
all good, but in different directions.

 

[Joerg]

Jim Thompson wrote:
[snip]
On long drives I listen to AM a lot. The reason is quite simple. The US
is such a large country and there are long stretches of land with very
sparse population. IOW not enough market for FM stations with their low
range. You can always find this or that local station but if their
programming is boring, well, then you must switch to the AM band. Also,
the smaller FM station tend to drift into the noise after only a few
country songs while AM stations usually stay around for hundreds of miles.
That's why I like satellite radio. The stretch of I8 from Gila Bend
to Yuma is devoid of FM and has only Mexican AM... although some of
their oom-pah-pah bands can be pretty entertaining... and their ads
are hilarious... all that shrieking, hooting and hollering ;-)

Ahora escuchen YUMAAAAAH! Ven al partido de futiboooooool EL DOMINGOOOOO!
OK. You have that down-pat. I'll see if I can get you an announcing
job with KPAZ ;-)

Isn't KPAZ a religious station? Can't recall any Espanol on there but
it's been a while.

KPAZ is _the_ major Hispanic station in Phoenix.

Ok, so now I did a web search:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KPAZ-TV

Only one of the sub-channels (21.4) is in Spanish. The rest is
faith-based broadcasting:

http://www.tbn.org/about-us

Or is the Wikipedia entry wrong?

 

[Joerg]

$40 for the radio & $160 for three union members to install it.

No, only $20 for the radio. The other $20 is for the retirement fund and
the "jobs bank"

--
SCRN, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

 

[Joerg]

Jim Thompson wrote:
Jim Thompson wrote:
[snip]
On long drives I listen to AM a lot. The reason is quite simple. The US
is such a large country and there are long stretches of land with very
sparse population. IOW not enough market for FM stations with their low
range. You can always find this or that local station but if their
programming is boring, well, then you must switch to the AM band. Also,
the smaller FM station tend to drift into the noise after only a few
country songs while AM stations usually stay around for hundreds of miles.
That's why I like satellite radio. The stretch of I8 from Gila Bend
to Yuma is devoid of FM and has only Mexican AM... although some of
their oom-pah-pah bands can be pretty entertaining... and their ads
are hilarious... all that shrieking, hooting and hollering ;-)

Ahora escuchen YUMAAAAAH! Ven al partido de futiboooooool EL DOMINGOOOOO!
OK. You have that down-pat. I'll see if I can get you an announcing
job with KPAZ ;-)

Isn't KPAZ a religious station? Can't recall any Espanol on there but
it's been a while.
KPAZ is _the_ major Hispanic station in Phoenix.

Ok, so now I did a web search:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KPAZ-TV

Only one of the sub-channels (21.4) is in Spanish. The rest is
faith-based broadcasting:

http://www.tbn.org/about-us

Or is the Wikipedia entry wrong?

Digital? I don't do digital, I do cable... no fade-out here ;-)

I was remembering an AM radio station off the top of my head that I
thought was KPAZ.

Looks like I was confusing it with KTAZ.

Probably Telemundo.

Since I can't speak a lick of Spanish, how would I know ;-)

Which presents a funny situation "en familia"...

My Hispanic son-in-law speaks no Spanish.

My Hispanic granddaughter will be taking Spanish at U of A this year.

Both my oldest daughter and oldest son are street fluent in (Mexican)
Spanish... the daughter from running United Way in Yuma, the son from
working summers installing sprinkler systems in Tucson (with Mexican
crew working for him), while attending U of A.

And I speak German with an accent and English with an accent. Both
somewhat slight but noticeable, I guess that's just the usual fate of an
expat. However, it can be worse: An engineer at a client speaks English
with a Puerto-Rican accent yet cannot speak or write in Spanish.

 

[[email protected]]

I vaguely recall multiple WLW's....

WLW-C, Cincinnati

WLW-T, Toledo

WLWT (WLW-T) stands for WLW-Television, also in Cincinatti (no longer in the
same broadcasting group).

Weren't there others as well?

Apparently there was a WLW-D in Dayton, WLW-I Indianapolis, WLW-A Atlanta, and
WLW-C Columbus, all related to WLW (note the five-limit on broadcast
ownership). Note the hyphens were used by the broadcast company's marketing
departments, not the FCC (as rebroadcasting transmitters often do now).

http://www.search.com/reference/WLWT

 

[[email protected]]

No, only $20 for the radio. The other $20 is for the retirement fund and
the "jobs bank"

GM's split: $20 radio - $20 union thug - $160 DNC.

 

[JosephKK]

Some? There are probably 10's of thousands of AM stations in the USA.
Your country is smaller than many/most of our states, so you don't
appreciate the need for "medium wave" to cover large areas. I could
listen to WWVA in Boston (~500 air-miles away) quite clearly with low
SNR.

...Jim Thompson

When the skip is in good, you can get amazing reception. Like when i
wn Bremerton WA (late 1973) and from about 10 PM to midnight KKHI out
of San Francisco would _bury_ the adjacent channel (10 kHz away) local
station.

 

[JosephKK]

^^^^^^^^

Pun intended?

Of Bourse.

In those cases I'd rather send them a SASE envelope, a blank diskette
and $20 for the effoert to copy and the walk by the mail room. Then use
the remaining $80 for a nice dinner with the wife.

Probably would have if it was available that way at that time.

 

[Joerg]

JosephKK wrote:

[...]

In those cases I'd rather send them a SASE envelope, a blank diskette
and $20 for the effoert to copy and the walk by the mail room. Then use
the remaining $80 for a nice dinner with the wife.

Probably would have if it was available that way at that time.

What wasn't available? Stamps? Envelopes? Dinner? Wife? Ok then, maybe a
girlfriend?

Ok, diskettes could be hard to come by but we sometimes used audio
cassettes for data storage. Those were cheap. I believe Commodore called
them datasettes.

 

[Joerg]

JosephKK wrote: [...]

cost me about $100 long distance for a little less than a MB. Now
that would be a few seconds and included (and would dissapear) in my
monthly. Today, a sloppy webpage will eat up a MB or more, and an
overnight DL would be about 5 GB; over 5 thousand times the data
volume. Just about 20 years difference.
In those cases I'd rather send them a SASE envelope, a blank diskette
and $20 for the effoert to copy and the walk by the mail room. Then use
the remaining $80 for a nice dinner with the wife.
Probably would have if it was available that way at that time.

What wasn't available? Stamps? Envelopes? Dinner? Wife? Ok then, maybe a
girlfriend?

Ok, diskettes could be hard to come by but we sometimes used audio
cassettes for data storage. Those were cheap. I believe Commodore called
them datasettes.

The 'Datasette' was a modified cassette deck that plugged onto the PC
board with a six pin edge connector, not the storage media.

Yeah, but you know how it goes. People start using a catchy name for the
media as well. Just like many people say "I made a mess here, do you
have a Kleenex?" even though Kleenex is the manufacturer and not the
product name.

 

[Joerg]

Did you ever talk to the engineers who designed them? ...

Yes, but not in the US. I don't think there are any manufacturers left
for car stereos (which is sad).

... Where do you think I got the numbers?

From GM?

 

[Joerg]

Joerg wrote:
JosephKK wrote:
JosephKK wrote:
[...]

cost me about $100 long distance for a little less than a MB. Now
that would be a few seconds and included (and would dissapear) in my
monthly. Today, a sloppy webpage will eat up a MB or more, and an
overnight DL would be about 5 GB; over 5 thousand times the data
volume. Just about 20 years difference.
In those cases I'd rather send them a SASE envelope, a blank diskette
and $20 for the effoert to copy and the walk by the mail room. Then use
the remaining $80 for a nice dinner with the wife.
Probably would have if it was available that way at that time.
What wasn't available? Stamps? Envelopes? Dinner? Wife? Ok then, maybe a
girlfriend?

Ok, diskettes could be hard to come by but we sometimes used audio
cassettes for data storage. Those were cheap. I believe Commodore called
them datasettes.

The 'Datasette' was a modified cassette deck that plugged onto the PC
board with a six pin edge connector, not the storage media.

Yeah, but you know how it goes. People start using a catchy name for the
media as well. Just like many people say "I made a mess here, do you
have a Kleenex?" even though Kleenex is the manufacturer and not the
product name.

And Frigidaire ;-)

Yesterday I needed one more hose to finally get the swamp cooler going
and that store had a few old appliances on display. One was a fridge
from the 30's that ran with sulfur. It had a big round thingie on top
that looked like a radial engine.

 

[Joerg]

The used to be DELCO _Radio_ Division. I designed chips for them. And
Guide Lamp Division... designed a head light dimmer for them.

One of mine ran on the DELCO process. But that's all gone now. The next
one will run at X-Fab.

 

[Joerg]

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Joerg wrote:
JosephKK wrote:
JosephKK wrote:
[...]

cost me about $100 long distance for a little less than a MB. Now
that would be a few seconds and included (and would dissapear) in my
monthly. Today, a sloppy webpage will eat up a MB or more, and an
overnight DL would be about 5 GB; over 5 thousand times the data
volume. Just about 20 years difference.
In those cases I'd rather send them a SASE envelope, a blank diskette
and $20 for the effoert to copy and the walk by the mail room. Then use
the remaining $80 for a nice dinner with the wife.
Probably would have if it was available that way at that time.
What wasn't available? Stamps? Envelopes? Dinner? Wife? Ok then, maybe a
girlfriend?

Ok, diskettes could be hard to come by but we sometimes used audio
cassettes for data storage. Those were cheap. I believe Commodore called
them datasettes.
The 'Datasette' was a modified cassette deck that plugged onto the PC
board with a six pin edge connector, not the storage media.
Yeah, but you know how it goes. People start using a catchy name for the
media as well. Just like many people say "I made a mess here, do you
have a Kleenex?" even though Kleenex is the manufacturer and not the
product name.
And Frigidaire ;-)

Yesterday I needed one more hose to finally get the swamp cooler going
and that store had a few old appliances on display. One was a fridge
from the 30's that ran with sulfur. It had a big round thingie on top
that looked like a radial engine.

Sulfur? I've seen units that ran an ammonia cycle, natural gas
powered, that had the "big round thingie on top"... I believe it's a
heat exchanger.

This one was before the ammonia versions, it was the one in the 2nd picture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator

Quote "As the refrigerating medium, these refrigerators used either
sulfur dioxide, which is corrosive to the eyes and may cause loss of
vision, painful skin burns and lesions, or methyl formate, which is
highly flammable, harmful to the eyes, and toxic if inhaled or ingested."

 

[Martin Brown]

Presumably the evil datalosing Sinclair ZX Microdrives as used on the QL
never made it across the pond.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Microdrive

Yesterday I needed one more hose to finally get the swamp cooler going
and that store had a few old appliances on display. One was a fridge
from the 30's that ran with sulfur. It had a big round thingie on top
that looked like a radial engine.

ITYM sulphur dioxide (which was at one time used) as was ammonia.

Both have boiling point in about the right range but are horribly toxic
for home use. I still recall an industrial scale ice plant for diazo
dyes with a 30' flywheel with a pump that shook the ground on the
compression cycle and smelt of ammonia downwind.

Molten sulphur is only used for cooling in Hell.

Regards,
Martin Bron

 

[Joerg]

Joerg wrote:
JosephKK wrote:
JosephKK wrote:
[...]

cost me about $100 long distance for a little less than a MB. Now
that would be a few seconds and included (and would dissapear) in my
monthly. Today, a sloppy webpage will eat up a MB or more, and an
overnight DL would be about 5 GB; over 5 thousand times the data
volume. Just about 20 years difference.
In those cases I'd rather send them a SASE envelope, a blank diskette
and $20 for the effoert to copy and the walk by the mail room. Then use
the remaining $80 for a nice dinner with the wife.
Probably would have if it was available that way at that time.
What wasn't available? Stamps? Envelopes? Dinner? Wife? Ok then, maybe a
girlfriend?

Ok, diskettes could be hard to come by but we sometimes used audio
cassettes for data storage. Those were cheap. I believe Commodore called
them datasettes.

The 'Datasette' was a modified cassette deck that plugged onto the PC
board with a six pin edge connector, not the storage media.

Yeah, but you know how it goes. People start using a catchy name for the
media as well. Just like many people say "I made a mess here, do you
have a Kleenex?" even though Kleenex is the manufacturer and not the
product name.

That may be, but I never saw any 'Compact Cassette' marked Datasette.

There were, in Europe. IIRC "data cassette" or something like that. I
guess the only reason was to make a buck more on them. Supposedly they
were 100% tested for no dropouts in the magnetic layer.

 

[Joerg]

Yep. Once-upon-a-time Delco had a respectable HV process.

Almost all of my recent stuff is on X-Fab. Which process?

The XH035 process, 100V.

 

[Joerg]

Joerg wrote:
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Joerg wrote:
JosephKK wrote:
JosephKK wrote:
[...]

cost me about $100 long distance for a little less than a MB. Now
that would be a few seconds and included (and would dissapear) in my
monthly. Today, a sloppy webpage will eat up a MB or more, and an
overnight DL would be about 5 GB; over 5 thousand times the data
volume. Just about 20 years difference.
In those cases I'd rather send them a SASE envelope, a blank diskette
and $20 for the effoert to copy and the walk by the mail room. Then use
the remaining $80 for a nice dinner with the wife.
Probably would have if it was available that way at that time.
What wasn't available? Stamps? Envelopes? Dinner? Wife? Ok then, maybe a
girlfriend?

Ok, diskettes could be hard to come by but we sometimes used audio
cassettes for data storage. Those were cheap. I believe Commodore called
them datasettes.
The 'Datasette' was a modified cassette deck that plugged onto the PC
board with a six pin edge connector, not the storage media.
Yeah, but you know how it goes. People start using a catchy name for the
media as well. Just like many people say "I made a mess here, do you
have a Kleenex?" even though Kleenex is the manufacturer and not the
product name.

That may be, but I never saw any 'Compact Cassette' marked Datasette.

There were, in Europe. IIRC "data cassette" or something like that. I
guess the only reason was to make a buck more on them. Supposedly they
were 100% tested for no dropouts in the magnetic layer.

A stronger, thicker backing so it wouldn't stretch like cheap c-120
cassettes. Radio Shack used to sell them. Some were as short as five
minutes.

I just bought answering machine grade. 30 minutes, sturdy as heck, and a
lot cheaper.

 

[Joerg]

CAUTION, I just got an E-mail announcement:

"Dear X-TIC User,

Our approach is to continually improve our processes to meet and
exceed our customers expectations. Nevertheless we need to inform you
today about an issue that occurred with the matching of the XH035,
XA035 and XO035 MIM capacitors cmm, cdmm. The re-characterization of
the XH035, XA035 and XO035 processes showed lower than expected
performance. Please read the attached PDF document for more details.

The XH035 Cadence PDK will be updated in accordance to the changed
parameters.

X-FAB has started immediate internal actions to find out the root
cause for this behavior. An update of that issue is expected to be
available by the end of January 2011."

I know

Personally I find it very comforting if a company is upfront, fesses up
to mishaps and then takes corrective action. This process is cutting
edge stuff.

 

[JosephKK]

JosephKK wrote:

[...]

cost me about $100 long distance for a little less than a MB. Now
that would be a few seconds and included (and would dissapear) in my
monthly. Today, a sloppy webpage will eat up a MB or more, and an
overnight DL would be about 5 GB; over 5 thousand times the data
volume. Just about 20 years difference.

In those cases I'd rather send them a SASE envelope, a blank diskette
and $20 for the effoert to copy and the walk by the mail room. Then use
the remaining $80 for a nice dinner with the wife.

Probably would have if it was available that way at that time.

What wasn't available? Stamps? Envelopes? Dinner? Wife? Ok then, maybe a
girlfriend?

Ok, diskettes could be hard to come by but we sometimes used audio
cassettes for data storage. Those were cheap. I believe Commodore called
them datasettes.

Quite simple really, they would not deal with physical media. DL it
or go without.