WAY OT: phones,
et al (was Re: OT: click license (was Re: Software Licensing and
Sanity (was...)))
Fairlight
fairlite at fairlite.com
Mon Aug 2 20:57:41 PDT 2004
Only Bill Vermillion would say something like:
> > I think you meant "cannot". :)
>
> Hm. Spell checker missed that :-)^32.
Go figger. :)
> Typically there will be an underground feed coming to a pole and
> then lines will go overhead from the pole to the individual houses.
> Last time I lost a line the checked from the house to the pole -
> across the street - and then found that the wires coming up from
> the ground to the pole had a pair go bad.
Hey, they say it's external, I believe them. Especially when I'm told that
five times and you say they can pinpoint it that accurately.
> It's usually mixed with underground and overheads. But you are in
> Louisville - so anyting can happen :-)
Ooooohh...Now -I- don't mind that, but I'm a transplant. Don't let Bob
hear you say it though! *shh!* :)
> > Explains why with that nice 40' span, whenever there's a storm
> > my DSL gets flaky and bursty, not to mention drops like a rock.
> > Doesn't even have to be terribly close sometimes...just like
> > 45min on either side of being over us will do it.
>
> So something is leaking and the high-frequencies are getting
> killed. It's like running a TV coax cable and then getting it
> crushed and/or stepped on and flattening it and then wondering why
> the picture has gone bad. Or like the flat TV cable that someone
> runs under an aluminum framed window. RF just likes to play games
> with your best laid plans.
Yeah. Except my wireless LAN doesn't even have that kind of problem during
those storms. But my reactions with the DSL are very closely in line with
my TV reception. This whole apartment is like one giant electromagnetic
black hole sometimes, I swear. It takes an act of Congress to get decent
reception. When I used to use cordless phones, I could hit static bursts
on most channels just walking across the room, and only a few channels were
good to begin with. I dunno how the wireless 802.11b stuff is done, but
basically only four channels of eleven work worth a damn here. I used to
use 6, and I'll fall to that in emergencies. I stick with 2, and if 2
fails with interference I switch to 11. My tertiary choice is 3, and a
fallback of 6. I can get the rest to work, but the speed is wayyyy off.
I've never had a frequency not work, it's a matter of working at 1/5th the
speed at times, depending on the phase of the moon and various planetary
alignments. I remember trying 9 once and it felt like a 14.4 modem. :)
Speaking of RF...I was wondering something when Kelly and I got onto it the
other day. You hear stories about people pirating satellite TV like they
do cable. With cable, that's one thing. You have a definite service using
dedicated equipment that they own. However, with satellite, they broadcast
using the public EM spectrum. That was, back in the day (closer to your
day than mine, I fear) a "public trust", hence all the licensing of the
segments of the public spectrum. So how is descrambling a signal broadcast
in the public spectrum supposed to be illegal when they're putting it
out there for anyone to receive? I can see the crime and immorality of
stealing a -service-, but technically, they don't own the medium used to
provide that service. Essentially, it's not much different than regular
old broadcast TV, and you have a tuner decode that. Ditto with police
scanners, and you can buy those. I'm curious how they legitimise the claim
that it's theft, when they're using the public airwaves. You can respond
privately if you feel we've had enough topic drift. Just mentioned it
since you brought up RF in general and it came to the tip of my mind.
mark->
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