I've seen ATMs with really bad alignment. How about a pinball flipper button with a 2x40 LCD screen next to it for each position/candidate? Then hav an LED next to the button to show which one was active before the voter hits the VOTE button.
Colin: For cheap but drinkable try John Barr (http://johnbarrscotch.com). a clone of Johnny Walker. Not as good as a 10yr single malt but can be had for reasonable prices ($14/fith in WA state.)
...but then some wiener designed a computer modem, and the downfall was quick, it was now quick and easy to use stock parts to auto dial and even give people pre-recorded messages over telephone.
Actually we used a Commodore 64 and a Code-a-Phone where we added two 6522 on the expansion port to replace the outputs of the 8048 MCU in the answering machine. (wygant.com)
Nice project! Two books to recommend for the beginner are:
Don Lancaster, "TTL Cookbook", Howard W. Sams and Co., Indianapolis, 1975, ISBN 0-672-21035-5 and his CMOS cookbook (also by Sams). They are old but will give one an excellent feel for how logic 'legos' can be glommed together.
Also his "Active Filter Cookbook" is great if you want to play with analog signals.
I started out with a perfboard, 9v battery, 7805, a pile of 74xx chips and actually learned enough to put a 6502 based computer board into production without any schooling beyond late 70s high school electronics class.
True, that's why I added the "geographical location" distinction. Of course with a gain antenna (by nature directional, unless you count regenerative gain which narrows the bandwidth instead of focus (see the Kiwa loop)) in a location on the fringe of several stations you can select one out of several stations. With the above mentioned loop antenna I was able pickup 3-5 stations on each AM broadcast slot one day by selecting the direction and using the regeneration for gain.
I think the issue is that you are using the translators (block repeaters) that may not have been designed for the new digital signals. I would try to contact the chief engineers of a few of the stations and see what they say. This is an interesting situation that I had not considered and the only translators I've ever setup have been for the FM broadcast band. TV is a whole 'nother animal.
If you care to, reply to this thread or email me with what you find out about DTV and translators.
"Satellites are broadcasting about a thousand miles further away than terrestrial antennas will be..
Try 23,000 miles or so.
"I'm utterly confused. There are multiple broadcasting antennas, just as there are multiple satellites. In both cases, you're only "obtaining" a signal from one at a time."
Actually your antenna is getting all the signals all the time (both OTA and sat) and the tuner is used to narrow it down to one station (or transponder.)
The terrestrial stations are selected by frequency (and geographical location.) Satellites are selected by exact pointing to a location in space but reuse the same frequencies. Modern direct broadcast satellites (i.e.; DirecTV) also use spot beams aimed at various local markets in order to reuse frequencies (transponders) for transmission of local stations.
If you have drop-outs on DirecTV then you have a bad install, a tree has grown, or there is snow on the dish. If it is not a tree or snow then call DirecTV for a on-site service call. Skip being walked through the binder by saying there is smoke coming out of the receiver, really. The service tech that gets the call doesn't have notes on the cause anyway. If you don't have the protection plan then pony up $15 and then get on the protection plan for $5.99/mo to get the service call. Don't let the tech go until all your receivers are reading in the mid 90s for most transponders, including the 103 and 99 sats if you have HD.
"...Neilson company doesn't consider it big enough for classifying it as an independent television market."
The FCC defines the television markets, not the rating companies.
BTW: are your current analog local stations VHF or UHF. If you want your issue solved please list all the full chain of equipment that you are using, from antenna (including transmission line) to the TV. Only then we may be able to help. Otherwise you're just a bitchin' for the sake of bitchin' which is a waste of universal bandwidth that could have been used to render a nipple on a girlie picture.
I quit the George Jetson life-style. After years of sitting in front of monitors pushing buttons and eating Chinese for lunch I got my 5'4" self to 200lbs; the only heavy lifting I did was racking routers and severs every-so-often.
Now (since I have my mortgage paid off) I don't have to make the six-figures and took a blue-collar job installing DirecTV systems. It's still kind of geeky and requires good trouble-shooting skills so my mind is still active. But no more pagers off-hours, no budget forecasts, no longer am I the only one that can take care of a problem (we have about 100 I&R techs in my shop.) Hauling ass all day with ladders, dishes and cable outside in the weather (Puget Sound rain), training customers on how to use their TV, each job is a new challenge. And I've lost 30lbs in the last year and don't get winded ever.
All I'm saying is that it's worked out great for me. I interact with new people everyday, have a nice ladder-van to take home that is full of RF toys, have a great excuse to buy "tools" and am actually damn happy most of the time. I may be tired when I get home but my home-life is great now that I don't bring the job home with me.
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Hey alta! Don't send those damn kids over here!
Confidence in the voting system is more important to the democracy in the long term than who wins a particular vote.
After the last 8 years I'm wondering on that one.
I've seen ATMs with really bad alignment. How about a pinball flipper button with a 2x40 LCD screen next to it for each position/candidate? Then hav an LED next to the button to show which one was active before the voter hits the VOTE button.
Use a flipper button from a pinball machine.
How the hell did you get a C64 to do 2kbit/second? The best I could ever get out the 6526 emulating a 6551 was about 600baud.
Thanks for an interesting thread. Good debate.
Stay safe.
-Joe
because it will rot on the tree while the paperwork gets done.
Geekoid: I'm going to have to unfriend you if you don't start using preview.
Because that's the way he wants it! And it also makes it harder to push the tab up to get the damn thing out.
what's up with the 7 call in FL?
73
w7com
At 320x240 you can only get a decent 40 column screen. Think C64 type rez but better choice of colors.
I must be getting old but it looks like a high school production of TOS to me.
Damn insightful. And I just used up all my mods points a few minutes ago.
and no-script. Does it run on FreeBSD yet?
Colin: For cheap but drinkable try John Barr (http://johnbarrscotch.com). a clone of Johnny Walker. Not as good as a 10yr single malt but can be had for reasonable prices ($14/fith in WA state.)
...but then some wiener designed a computer modem, and the downfall was quick, it was now quick and easy to use stock parts to auto dial and even give people pre-recorded messages over telephone.
Actually we used a Commodore 64 and a Code-a-Phone where we added two 6522 on the expansion port to replace the outputs of the 8048 MCU in the answering machine. (wygant.com)
Nice project! Two books to recommend for the beginner are:
Don Lancaster, "TTL Cookbook", Howard W. Sams and Co., Indianapolis, 1975, ISBN 0-672-21035-5
and his CMOS cookbook (also by Sams). They are old but will give one an excellent feel for how logic 'legos' can be glommed together.
Also his "Active Filter Cookbook" is great if you want to play with analog signals.
I started out with a perfboard, 9v battery, 7805, a pile of 74xx chips and actually learned enough to put a 6502 based computer board into production without any schooling beyond late 70s high school electronics class.
True, that's why I added the "geographical location" distinction. Of course with a gain antenna (by nature directional, unless you count regenerative gain which narrows the bandwidth instead of focus (see the Kiwa loop)) in a location on the fringe of several stations you can select one out of several stations. With the above mentioned loop antenna I was able pickup 3-5 stations on each AM broadcast slot one day by selecting the direction and using the regeneration for gain.
I think the issue is that you are using the translators (block repeaters) that may not have been designed for the new digital signals. I would try to contact the chief engineers of a few of the stations and see what they say. This is an interesting situation that I had not considered and the only translators I've ever setup have been for the FM broadcast band. TV is a whole 'nother animal.
If you care to, reply to this thread or email me with what you find out about DTV and translators.
Best regards,
Joe
"Satellites are broadcasting about a thousand miles further away than terrestrial antennas will be..
Try 23,000 miles or so.
"I'm utterly confused. There are multiple broadcasting antennas, just as there are multiple satellites. In both cases, you're only "obtaining" a signal from one at a time."
Actually your antenna is getting all the signals all the time (both OTA and sat) and the tuner is used to narrow it down to one station (or transponder.)
The terrestrial stations are selected by frequency (and geographical location.) Satellites are selected by exact pointing to a location in space but reuse the same frequencies. Modern direct broadcast satellites (i.e.; DirecTV) also use spot beams aimed at various local markets in order to reuse frequencies (transponders) for transmission of local stations.
The theory does, but not the actual design for a modern broadband TV antenna. Unless you're talking about a fan-dipole :)
73, w7com
If you have drop-outs on DirecTV then you have a bad install, a tree has grown, or there is snow on the dish. If it is not a tree or snow then call DirecTV for a on-site service call. Skip being walked through the binder by saying there is smoke coming out of the receiver, really. The service tech that gets the call doesn't have notes on the cause anyway. If you don't have the protection plan then pony up $15 and then get on the protection plan for $5.99/mo to get the service call. Don't let the tech go until all your receivers are reading in the mid 90s for most transponders, including the 103 and 99 sats if you have HD.
Confessions of a DirecTV service tech.
"...Neilson company doesn't consider it big enough for classifying it as an independent television market."
The FCC defines the television markets, not the rating companies.
BTW: are your current analog local stations VHF or UHF. If you want your issue solved please list all the full chain of equipment that you are using, from antenna (including transmission line) to the TV. Only then we may be able to help. Otherwise you're just a bitchin' for the sake of bitchin' which is a waste of universal bandwidth that could have been used to render a nipple on a girlie picture.
What's that bumper-sticker? If you want peace, fight for justice.
I quit the George Jetson life-style. After years of sitting in front of monitors pushing buttons and eating Chinese for lunch I got my 5'4" self to 200lbs; the only heavy lifting I did was racking routers and severs every-so-often.
Now (since I have my mortgage paid off) I don't have to make the six-figures and took a blue-collar job installing DirecTV systems. It's still kind of geeky and requires good trouble-shooting skills so my mind is still active. But no more pagers off-hours, no budget forecasts, no longer am I the only one that can take care of a problem (we have about 100 I&R techs in my shop.) Hauling ass all day with ladders, dishes and cable outside in the weather (Puget Sound rain), training customers on how to use their TV, each job is a new challenge. And I've lost 30lbs in the last year and don't get winded ever.
All I'm saying is that it's worked out great for me. I interact with new people everyday, have a nice ladder-van to take home that is full of RF toys, have a great excuse to buy "tools" and am actually damn happy most of the time. I may be tired when I get home but my home-life is great now that I don't bring the job home with me.
Hell, cheap beer is even starting to taste good!