Dumbed down consumer electronics: Adding DTV channels
in [Design]
|
From: Jim Thompson on 10 Aug 2010 15:14 On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:53:42 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote: >Jim Thompson wrote: >> On Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:07:50 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> >> wrote: >> >>> Jim Thompson wrote: >>>> On Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:29:06 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Jim Thompson wrote: >>>>>> On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 13:54:51 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> >>>>>> 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. 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. ...Jim Thompson -- | James E.Thompson, CTO | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 | Spice is like a sports car... Performance only as good as the person behind the wheel.
From: Joerg on 10 Aug 2010 16:35 Jim Thompson wrote: > On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:53:42 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> > wrote: > >> Jim Thompson wrote: >>> On Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:07:50 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Jim Thompson wrote: >>>>> On Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:29:06 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Jim Thompson wrote: >>>>>>> On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 13:54:51 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> >>>>>>> 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. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
From: krw on 10 Aug 2010 18:38 On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 07:47:06 -0700, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon(a)On-My-Web-Site.com> wrote: >On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 05:30:26 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" ><mike.terrell(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > >> >>Paul Keinanen wrote: >>> >>> On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 09:28:58 -0700, Jim Thompson >>> ?To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon(a)On-My-Web-Site.com? wrote: >>> >>> ?On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 17:48:42 +0300, Paul Keinanen ?keinanen(a)sci.fi? >>> ?wrote: >>> >>> ??Are you really saying that some radio broadcasting companies in the US >>> ??are still using medium wave AM as their main distribution channel ?? >>> ? >>> ?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. >>> >>> Alaska, Texas and California have a larger land area than Finland, as >>> expected. However, I did not expect Montana to be also slightly >>> larger. >>> >>> FM started here in the early 1950's and only a few people relied on AM >>> in the 1960's. In the 1990's medium wave AM was used to send news to >>> Finnish speaking emigrants in Sweden and to the Finnish speaking >>> minority in NE Russia. >>> >>> Since those days, only hobby based low power (0.1 kW) AM transmitters >>> have been used during some selected weekends, mainly to support >>> DX-listeners. >>> >>> To me, it is a surprise that medium wave AM is still actually used for >>> commercial broadcasting. >> >> >> Up to 50 KW AM transmitters are quite common. At one time WLW in >>Cincinnati, Ohio ran 500 KW on 700 KHz. > >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
From: krw on 10 Aug 2010 18:41 On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:55:50 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote: >Michael A. Terrell wrote: >> Joel Koltner wrote: >>> Hi Joerg, >>> >>> Joerg wrote: >>> ? Yes, having landed a de-facto monopoly provides a plum position in the >>> ? marketplace no matter how small that monopoly is. >>> >>> True... the problem with iBiquity is that the FCC let them have the entire >>> market. At least with, e.g., Apple, while they get a cut of every (non-free) >>> app that ends up on a (non-jailbroken) iPhone, there are plenty of other GSM >>> phones out there. >>> >>> ? I vaguely remember one of the domestic car manufacturers offering it >>> ? (Polk i-something) but I also remember seeing a $500 price tag there. >>> >>> The car manufacturers have incredibly inflated ideas about how much radios >>> ought to cost -- even a simple AM/FM/CD player radio is often ?$200... >> >> >> $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" :-) GM's split: $20 radio - $20 union thug - $160 DNC.
From: JosephKK on 11 Aug 2010 00:24
On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 09:28:58 -0700, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon(a)On-My-Web-Site.com> wrote: >On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 17:48:42 +0300, Paul Keinanen <keinanen(a)sci.fi> >wrote: > >>On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 05:03:44 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" >><mike.terrell(a)earthlink.net> wrote: >> >>> >>>Joerg wrote: >>>> >>>> Out here the news is actualy not all that negative. But sometimes >>>> boring. For example, I really don't need to know where Chelsey Clinton >>>> got married. >>> >>> How about this news? A well known AM radio station lost all three >>>towers a few days ago. It was a well know country music station, with >>>its Wheeling Jamboree. >> >>Are you really saying that some radio broadcasting companies in the US >>are still using medium wave AM as their main distribution channel ?? > >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. |