Well, a crystal radio doesn't require any more power than the radio waves being received themselves to work, so my crystal radio will work "forever" (sadly, it's only AM so no SSB capabilities)
Otherwise, when the AA batteries fail there's always solar, or a dynamo. I have a SW receiver that (again, AM only) runs 30 minutes after cranking it 60 times.
As to the transmitter.. if you're into the QRP thing, there's always the age old potato battery that might get you enough juice, if some other means of charging isn't available (solar being ideal).
There's the technical aspect, the social aspect, and the sport aspect.
Technical if you like to build stuff. Interested in wi-fi? Study up for your ham test and start reading up on what it takes to build a good antenna, and suddenly you have a MUCH better understanding of how to go about building a "cantenna", get better TV reception, or why an external cell phone antenna on the roof of your car works better than inside.
Social - want to chat with someone, perhaps a random someone, down the street, across the state, across the country, or on another continent? You never know who you might run into. In this aspect, it's sort of like an Internet chat room. I stopped visiting IRC when the unwashed masses started invading in the 1990s, but with licensing and identification requirements (and $11,000/day fines for violation) ham operators tend to be more civilized. I've chatted with newly licensed teens on Thanksgiving break to a 9 year old Extra to NASA engineers to farmers to doctors to... you name it. South African, Australian, Russian, Bulgarian, Mexican, Cuban.. and so on.
Sporting - as others have mentioned, they have "contests" where the goal is to contact as many people, or states, or countries, or continents as you can in a given time period - and this drives back to the Technical aspect, since to improve your station usually requires better equipment - and almost always that translates into better antennas.
You can get involved pretty inexpensively if you find an ARRL affiliated club nearby. Many hams have previous generation equipment they don't want/need any more - many would loan it to a new ham (or outright donate), others would sell inexpensively, and then there's the regular hamfests (swapmeet), too.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
I'm not aware of the legal precedent since its inception, but to me, that statement means that I should be happy to have the privilege to purchase arms given that I'm not part of a "well regulated militia."
If I were doing the interpretation here, I'd say that if you want to own weapons, you should join the National Guard, but that's just me.
But you ARE part of that well-regulated militia.
Militia != National Guard. It's the unnamed reserves. At the time of the Framing, it was every man and boy in the country, because they all had to know how to handle a firearm to keep food on the table, and those people were the militia. All of us. Together.
"What I want to know is why the safety wasn't set on the gun. "
What do you define as a "safety"? In the case of many Glocks, and at least the S&W Sigma line (which you could get in.380), the safety IS the trigger.
There's a sort of double trigger employed. As you pull the trigger part way, it releases the safety, and as you finish pulling the trigger, the weapon discharges.
The "safety" aspect here is to prevent accidental discharge through dropping, or hitting, or any number of things OTHER THAN ACTUALLY PULLING THE TRIGGER.
Many places consider this "safer" than something like a 1911, which would be carried "cocked and locked" and thus is more "dangerous" despite having a manual safety switch as well as a grip safety that would've made it quite challenging for a 3 year old to actuate (you have to get your hand around the grip and still have a long enough finger left to reach the trigger at the same time).
The weapon's safety is not what failed here, it's the first safety, which is usually located just above your shoulders, but is absent in some models - and it seems more and more models are missing this key component these days.
I'd like full access not for piracy or cheating (though running a NES or Intellivision emulator would be cool) but to run MythTV properly on it.
The "yes, we let you run Linux" install cripples the graphics subsystem (and is not an option on the newest PS3s) such that my fancy PS3 running MythTV can't do better than Standard Def shows.
I have to resort to using UPNP to watch my HD captures (with a PC HDTV5500) and the native PS3 interface just isn't as nice as running MythFrontend.
The reason Sony doesn't want us to have access to the graphics chipset.. well, why license a game when you can sell it to run on the powerful (and sold at a loss) PS3 hardware and run the game under Linux?
I use my old Xbox for a front end most days - it handles SD content just fine, and works much better than the PS3. I just have to fire up the PS3 when it's time to watch an HD capture.
A silencer is a device to MUTE (not *silent* like in the movies) the noise made when shooting your rifle, so you don't cause your neighbors undue alarm or disturbance while shooting varmints in your back yard.
That was the original intent.
So you don't wake the neighbor's baby when you shoot a squirrel out of your tree with your trusty.22.
You should drive by more rural high schools in October/November and look in the rear window of the pickup trucks in the parking lot... there are plenty of guns out in public if you just know where to look.
My niece turned 10 this year and I bought her a single shot.22 rifle (a "Cricket" youth (short) rifle). This past Sunday was the first chance I had to get away from my two kids (3y and 7mo) and take my niece up to the rifle range for half a day.
She started to get pretty decent on the 50 yard range with the peep-hole sight by the end of the day. She left her glasses as school, so hitting the paper at 100 yards once was a big enough accomplishment.:D
She thought the staple gun we used to hang the targets made about as much noise, and had about as much kick, as the.22LR did.
Not so for my S&W40 pistol or the.30-06 Model 70 I was double checking before elk season.
Next up - find enough time to have her come over and we'll clean her rifle together.
(B) Amateur stations operating in the 2400-2417 MHz segment must accept harmful interference that may be caused by the proper operation of industrial, scientific and medical equipment.
(iv) The 2417-2450 MHz segment is allocated to the amateur service on a co-secondary basis with the Federal Government radiolocation service. Amateur stations operating within the 2417-2450 MHz segment must accept harmful interference that may be caused by the proper operation of industrial, scientific, and medical devices operating within the band.
So, getcherself a Ham license and you fall under "licensed communications" in the 2400Mhz range.
Now go try some moon bounce wifi.
As vlm pointed out, there are sections of the 2.4Ghz area that ARE licensed, and in particular, available to amateur radio operators, including use for Amateur Television transmission (or building your own (regional) private TCP/IP network using higher power and licensed amateur operators. Something to think about to replace the old AX.25 Packet Radio networks)
2.4Ghz is line of sight, and not fantastic at great distances, couple that with the microwave oven interference, and as so many others have said, it's a great choice for good bandwidth but very limited distance. Ideal for, say, covering your house.
That means it's not supposed to cause interference to your neighbor, because it shouldn't even make it that far - and if it is, you should turn down the power, or get a directional antenna.
900 Mhz is where all of the old cordless phones and such worked (or was it 700mhz?). When it got congested, they started moving the phones to 2.4Ghz...;)
For a long time, I would only buy 900Mhz cordless phones to avoid interference with my wifi network. Now the cordless phones are 5.8 or 6Ghz IIRC.
If the limit is 1w, then it's only 1w for unlicensed Part-15 use. Get yourself a Ham ticket and you'll discover that the first 7 channels overlap the LICENSED Ham spectrum, where a licensed ham can use far more than 1w - but can't use it for commercial purposes or encrypt the information.
(this means no ordering online, no work email, no VPN, no ads, and so on which more or less means no Internet.)
*Especially* while on board a ship, over a "perfect ground" of salt-water with nothing to obstruct the signal for miles and miles.
I think an HF rig would be great while on board, and a 2M HT could lead to some very interesting contacts while at port.
At what point do you need to check for a reciprocal licensing agreement. What applies in international waters?
Reciprocal would apply while at port, or inside territorial waters.
Back before Al Gore invented in the Internet (and even before DARPA invented the Internet before Al did) there was Ham Radio.
Ham Radio operators were the nerds and geeks of their day, experimenting with radios and electronics and making "stuff" much like many Slashdotters did in their youth, though a lot of us did it with computers.
Without Ham pioneers you wouldn't have a cell phone, or TV, or satellite phone communications around the globe, or NASA, or GPS, or Sirrius, or even AM or FM radio in your car. WiFi Internet?
That "thingy" you push to unlock your car doors? Yep, you can trace it's lineage back to a ham operator.
(Unless you argue that Marconi wasn't a ham operator - maybe he predates ham operators..:) )
Sadly, Amateur Radio isn't as gee-whiz as it used to be, thanks to the Internet, cell phones, wifi data networks, cheap global commercial sat-comms, and so on.
But then, Archie, Veronica, Gopher, and UseNet have lost a lot of their luster, too.
Why play a MUD/MUSH/MOO when you can play COD4 on your PS3?
Or.. why walk from NY to LA when you can take the train? Why take the train, when you could just fly?
That's just the evolution of things - each builds upon the work of those that came before.
Exactly. I keep hearing people screaming for "more wells in the US" and "stop buying from the Middle East" and they cite security and economic independence, etc.
The reality is, we want to pump the Middle East dry before we tap ANY more national reserves.
Think about it, folks - what happens when we have no more reserves in the US, and only the Middle East has oil? They hold all of the cards.
For various reasons my cellular service provider is Verizon with all of the trappings that ensues.
I have a Motorola E815 that I finally have working the way I want, including Java on the phone. Not linux, but much more versatile than it originally was.
I was using OperaMini and Java SSH on my phone to surf and *very* occasionally remote-admin my machines. I could put 3gp TV shows ripped from my Myth box onto it, and I play MP3s in my 4x4 through the phone.
Very cool.
Until I bought a Nokia 770. Now the E815's secondary purpose (behind:gasp: making phone calls) is for EVDO DUN through the 770 when a 802.11 connection isn't available. I almost never use the E815 to check my mail, ssh, or much else other than Java Tetris any more.
I have the 770. BT GPS, BT Keyboard as optional accessories in my coat pocket, but the rest of the time I'm just using the 770 with the stylus.
SSH-FS to map drives back to the home server. VNC and SSH clients. SMB shares.
If I transcode my Myth shows to MP4 I can stream the TV shows to the 770 - even over DUN with the E815 in EVDO mode. Even better with a 802.11 hotspot or my local network. I'm working on GMythStream to transcode on the fly from the big MPEG2 files to something the 770 will process comfortably over a remote connection.
I haven't had a need for VOIP.
Anyhow.. the new Razr2 was looking promising, but the V8 Linux version isn't available for CDMA networks, and the V9m is still chock full of the usual crippleware.
But with the 770 in my pocket, it's not such a big deal that the phone is so restricted.
I need to look into this flash-mod for WebMyth.. maybe I can find a solution to let me stream it to my phone..;)
I've been running MythTV for quite a few years, migrating my install through a couple of hardware platforms along the way as my needs changed.
Early on, it was a PITA.. but lately, it's been a snap to install/configure and it just WORKS and runs.
One Athlon 900 with two PVR250 cards records two shows at once, while another machine (part-time) has a PVR150 as an additional cable tuner, or I manually record the output from the digital cable box.
Eventually, I'll get an IR-blaster in place to change the set-top box, but it hasn't been a priority.
You were pondering "new uses" for Myth.. I used to DVD-RW shows and hand 'em to my wife, but these days the various Windows PCs run WinMyth on occasion, but most of the Myth-watching is done on.. a pair of old Xboxes. (See: XBMC and the MythTV plugin) Stream shows right from the Myth box, and keep all of the commercial skip / instant forward/back, etc. while having a nice little box that looks like it belongs in my entertainment center.
When my daughter starts to watch TV, I think I'll toss in another HD into the Myth box and DivX any DVDs we buy for her so they can be safely locked away from pb&j fingers.
Another use for Myth - I have a "mobile" profile added into mythexport and frequently re-encode shows into 3GP and move 'em onto my E815 phone. Gives me something to do while my wife shops, or any other boring situations.
You could use the same setup to encode your shows for playback on a video Ipod.
One of the best things I've done for my home Myth setup?
I bought an Xbox. Installed XboxMediaCenter and the Myth scripts.
I used to take the recorded shows and burn DVD-RWs for my wife who'd take the DVDs to one of the various TVs around the house (or the portable) to watch her shows.
Now she turns on the Xbox, picks her show, and away it goes.
Now I need a few more Xboxes..
Unrelated, I also use my Myth machine to transcode TV shows into 3gp which I then put onto a Transflash chip in my Motorola E815 and watch "TV" on my phone.
Cartoons like Southpark and Futurama work great, live action stuff isn't as great, but OK.
Really handy when you're out shopping and (1 minute later) get bored and find a bench to sit on while you wait for the rest of your party to finish their window shopping.
XBMC is pretty cool in itself, streaming Youtube, watching my DivX videos, playing MP3s, photo slideshows, along with a host of emulator options, etc.
I can only record basic cable. It can do digital, but it would have to hook up to my digital box and use IR forwarding to control the box. That would sort of defeat the purpose of being able to record a show and watch something else at the same time. Not to mention the whole reason I got it was so I could record *two* shows at the same time. I'd either need another digital box dedicated to the MythTV box, or some sort of CableCARD thing.
I've been running Mythtv for several years now (I've lost count). I've used a PVR250 on a single Athlon 900 for most of that time, and it's been fine. I recently got a PVR150 working on a second box (been waiting for ivtv to work out the bugs, then waiting for me to find the time), so now I have dual tuners that'll record the "basic cable"
I'm now wanting to take the next step, and move the Digital Cable box into the server closet and feed it directly into a tuner card (likely buy a PVR500 dual-tuner or the Linux HDTV card that'll do regular AND HD). Let Myth control the cable box.
Yes, it means I won't be able to watch digital cable on the TV.
Well. Sort-of.
I finally added an Xbox with Myth to my home network. If I wanted to watch a "live" show off Digital Cable, I could just use the "liveTV" feature to pull the right Digital channel off of the Myth box.
As a bonus, I could schedule Digital channels to be recorded (finally using all of the extra HBOs, Showtime, and Speedivision channels I pay for but almost never watch).
Another bonus, I could watch one of those digital channels on any Xbox or Myth equipped TV in the house (or garage) or on my laptop. Today, I'm stuck with only the one TV with the digital tuner. Still stuck with only one live digital show at a time, but I rarely watch Live TV any more anyhow.
This year, the US didn't win the World Baseball Classic. Japan, which only learned the game after WWII, won by beating economic powerhouse Cuba. Baseball was invented in the US
FYI, Japan was playing baseball before WWII.
There was some argument that Japan didn't *really* play baseball, because how could anyone that loved baseball be so rude as to bomb Pearl Harbor?
It's been 2 or 3 years since I set up Myth and had it working and I'm still very happy.
Current setup is an Athlon 700 with a PVR250 card. My wife can pick out shows she wants and they just get recorded.
Moving them to a DVD is a little clunky, but sounds like that might be improved in.20.
We record all kinds of stuff, then they get moved to DVD-RWs and they move around the house to TV to TV (or portable DVD player). Movies get archived to DVD-R.
I'd like to hook the cable box in and access the hundreds of channels, but it just hasn't been a priority.
Recently I found a patch for nuvexport that included a "Mobile" profile. Now, not only can I export to DVD, or VideoCD, or DivX, or variations.. but I can easily export to my Motorola E815 and watch Futuruma on my phone while shopping with the in-laws.
I should have an X-box soon to make a silent front-end for one of the TVs. In the meantime, I watch my shows on the Myth box, or on one of my other PCs running a Myth front-end.
Maybe by the time IPv6 finally becomes pervasive we can use all of these unsecured WAPs as part of a big Mesh network to increase bandwidth without laying more fiber (or lighting up more of the dark fiber).
Forget about people "stealing" your pipe when you're actively part of a HUGE MAN (Metro Area Net) pipe.
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Well, a crystal radio doesn't require any more power than the radio waves being received themselves to work, so my crystal radio will work "forever" (sadly, it's only AM so no SSB capabilities) Otherwise, when the AA batteries fail there's always solar, or a dynamo. I have a SW receiver that (again, AM only) runs 30 minutes after cranking it 60 times. As to the transmitter.. if you're into the QRP thing, there's always the age old potato battery that might get you enough juice, if some other means of charging isn't available (solar being ideal).
There's the technical aspect, the social aspect, and the sport aspect.
Technical if you like to build stuff. Interested in wi-fi? Study up for your ham test and start reading up on what it takes to build a good antenna, and suddenly you have a MUCH better understanding of how to go about building a "cantenna", get better TV reception, or why an external cell phone antenna on the roof of your car works better than inside.
Social - want to chat with someone, perhaps a random someone, down the street, across the state, across the country, or on another continent? You never know who you might run into. In this aspect, it's sort of like an Internet chat room. I stopped visiting IRC when the unwashed masses started invading in the 1990s, but with licensing and identification requirements (and $11,000/day fines for violation) ham operators tend to be more civilized. I've chatted with newly licensed teens on Thanksgiving break to a 9 year old Extra to NASA engineers to farmers to doctors to... you name it. South African, Australian, Russian, Bulgarian, Mexican, Cuban.. and so on.
Sporting - as others have mentioned, they have "contests" where the goal is to contact as many people, or states, or countries, or continents as you can in a given time period - and this drives back to the Technical aspect, since to improve your station usually requires better equipment - and almost always that translates into better antennas.
You can get involved pretty inexpensively if you find an ARRL affiliated club nearby. Many hams have previous generation equipment they don't want/need any more - many would loan it to a new ham (or outright donate), others would sell inexpensively, and then there's the regular hamfests (swapmeet), too.
73 KE7VUX
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
I'm not aware of the legal precedent since its inception, but to me, that statement means that I should be happy to have the privilege to purchase arms given that I'm not part of a "well regulated militia."
If I were doing the interpretation here, I'd say that if you want to own weapons, you should join the National Guard, but that's just me.
But you ARE part of that well-regulated militia. Militia != National Guard. It's the unnamed reserves. At the time of the Framing, it was every man and boy in the country, because they all had to know how to handle a firearm to keep food on the table, and those people were the militia. All of us. Together.
"What I want to know is why the safety wasn't set on the gun. "
What do you define as a "safety"? In the case of many Glocks, and at least the S&W Sigma line (which you could get in .380), the safety IS the trigger.
There's a sort of double trigger employed. As you pull the trigger part way, it releases the safety, and as you finish pulling the trigger, the weapon discharges.
The "safety" aspect here is to prevent accidental discharge through dropping, or hitting, or any number of things OTHER THAN ACTUALLY PULLING THE TRIGGER.
Many places consider this "safer" than something like a 1911, which would be carried "cocked and locked" and thus is more "dangerous" despite having a manual safety switch as well as a grip safety that would've made it quite challenging for a 3 year old to actuate (you have to get your hand around the grip and still have a long enough finger left to reach the trigger at the same time).
The weapon's safety is not what failed here, it's the first safety, which is usually located just above your shoulders, but is absent in some models - and it seems more and more models are missing this key component these days.
I'd like full access not for piracy or cheating (though running a NES or Intellivision emulator would be cool) but to run MythTV properly on it. The "yes, we let you run Linux" install cripples the graphics subsystem (and is not an option on the newest PS3s) such that my fancy PS3 running MythTV can't do better than Standard Def shows. I have to resort to using UPNP to watch my HD captures (with a PC HDTV5500) and the native PS3 interface just isn't as nice as running MythFrontend. The reason Sony doesn't want us to have access to the graphics chipset.. well, why license a game when you can sell it to run on the powerful (and sold at a loss) PS3 hardware and run the game under Linux? I use my old Xbox for a front end most days - it handles SD content just fine, and works much better than the PS3. I just have to fire up the PS3 when it's time to watch an HD capture.
That was the original intent.
So you don't wake the neighbor's baby when you shoot a squirrel out of your tree with your trusty .22.
You should drive by more rural high schools in October/November and look in the rear window of the pickup trucks in the parking lot... there are plenty of guns out in public if you just know where to look. My niece turned 10 this year and I bought her a single shot .22 rifle (a "Cricket" youth (short) rifle). This past Sunday was the first chance I had to get away from my two kids (3y and 7mo) and take my niece up to the rifle range for half a day.
She started to get pretty decent on the 50 yard range with the peep-hole sight by the end of the day. She left her glasses as school, so hitting the paper at 100 yards once was a big enough accomplishment. :D
She thought the staple gun we used to hang the targets made about as much noise, and had about as much kick, as the .22LR did.
Not so for my S&W40 pistol or the .30-06 Model 70 I was double checking before elk season.
Next up - find enough time to have her come over and we'll clean her rifle together.
(B) Amateur stations operating in the 2400-2417 MHz segment must accept harmful interference that may be caused by the proper operation of industrial, scientific and medical equipment.
(iv) The 2417-2450 MHz segment is allocated to the amateur service on a co-secondary basis with the Federal Government radiolocation service. Amateur stations operating within the 2417-2450 MHz segment must accept harmful interference that may be caused by the proper operation of industrial, scientific, and medical devices operating within the band.
So, getcherself a Ham license and you fall under "licensed communications" in the 2400Mhz range. Now go try some moon bounce wifi.
As vlm pointed out, there are sections of the 2.4Ghz area that ARE licensed, and in particular, available to amateur radio operators, including use for Amateur Television transmission (or building your own (regional) private TCP/IP network using higher power and licensed amateur operators. Something to think about to replace the old AX.25 Packet Radio networks) 2.4Ghz is line of sight, and not fantastic at great distances, couple that with the microwave oven interference, and as so many others have said, it's a great choice for good bandwidth but very limited distance. Ideal for, say, covering your house. That means it's not supposed to cause interference to your neighbor, because it shouldn't even make it that far - and if it is, you should turn down the power, or get a directional antenna.
900 Mhz is where all of the old cordless phones and such worked (or was it 700mhz?). When it got congested, they started moving the phones to 2.4Ghz... ;)
For a long time, I would only buy 900Mhz cordless phones to avoid interference with my wifi network. Now the cordless phones are 5.8 or 6Ghz IIRC.
If the limit is 1w, then it's only 1w for unlicensed Part-15 use. Get yourself a Ham ticket and you'll discover that the first 7 channels overlap the LICENSED Ham spectrum, where a licensed ham can use far more than 1w - but can't use it for commercial purposes or encrypt the information. (this means no ordering online, no work email, no VPN, no ads, and so on which more or less means no Internet.)
*Especially* while on board a ship, over a "perfect ground" of salt-water with nothing to obstruct the signal for miles and miles. I think an HF rig would be great while on board, and a 2M HT could lead to some very interesting contacts while at port.
At what point do you need to check for a reciprocal licensing agreement. What applies in international waters? Reciprocal would apply while at port, or inside territorial waters.
Ham Radio operators were the nerds and geeks of their day, experimenting with radios and electronics and making "stuff" much like many Slashdotters did in their youth, though a lot of us did it with computers.
Without Ham pioneers you wouldn't have a cell phone, or TV, or satellite phone communications around the globe, or NASA, or GPS, or Sirrius, or even AM or FM radio in your car. WiFi Internet?
That "thingy" you push to unlock your car doors? Yep, you can trace it's lineage back to a ham operator.
(Unless you argue that Marconi wasn't a ham operator - maybe he predates ham operators.. :) )
Sadly, Amateur Radio isn't as gee-whiz as it used to be, thanks to the Internet, cell phones, wifi data networks, cheap global commercial sat-comms, and so on.
But then, Archie, Veronica, Gopher, and UseNet have lost a lot of their luster, too.
Why play a MUD/MUSH/MOO when you can play COD4 on your PS3?
Or.. why walk from NY to LA when you can take the train? Why take the train, when you could just fly?
That's just the evolution of things - each builds upon the work of those that came before.
-Tom KE7VUX
Mount the satellite dish INSIDE the house, looking out a window. Done.
Exactly. I keep hearing people screaming for "more wells in the US" and "stop buying from the Middle East" and they cite security and economic independence, etc.
The reality is, we want to pump the Middle East dry before we tap ANY more national reserves.
Think about it, folks - what happens when we have no more reserves in the US, and only the Middle East has oil? They hold all of the cards.
For various reasons my cellular service provider is Verizon with all of the trappings that ensues. I have a Motorola E815 that I finally have working the way I want, including Java on the phone. Not linux, but much more versatile than it originally was. I was using OperaMini and Java SSH on my phone to surf and *very* occasionally remote-admin my machines. I could put 3gp TV shows ripped from my Myth box onto it, and I play MP3s in my 4x4 through the phone. Very cool. Until I bought a Nokia 770. Now the E815's secondary purpose (behind :gasp: making phone calls) is for EVDO DUN through the 770 when a 802.11 connection isn't available. I almost never use the E815 to check my mail, ssh, or much else other than Java Tetris any more.
I have the 770. BT GPS, BT Keyboard as optional accessories in my coat pocket, but the rest of the time I'm just using the 770 with the stylus.
SSH-FS to map drives back to the home server. VNC and SSH clients. SMB shares.
If I transcode my Myth shows to MP4 I can stream the TV shows to the 770 - even over DUN with the E815 in EVDO mode. Even better with a 802.11 hotspot or my local network. I'm working on GMythStream to transcode on the fly from the big MPEG2 files to something the 770 will process comfortably over a remote connection.
I haven't had a need for VOIP.
Anyhow.. the new Razr2 was looking promising, but the V8 Linux version isn't available for CDMA networks, and the V9m is still chock full of the usual crippleware.
But with the 770 in my pocket, it's not such a big deal that the phone is so restricted.
I need to look into this flash-mod for WebMyth.. maybe I can find a solution to let me stream it to my phone.. ;)
I've been running MythTV for quite a few years, migrating my install through a couple of hardware platforms along the way as my needs changed.
Early on, it was a PITA.. but lately, it's been a snap to install/configure and it just WORKS and runs.
One Athlon 900 with two PVR250 cards records two shows at once, while another machine (part-time) has a PVR150 as an additional cable tuner, or I manually record the output from the digital cable box.
Eventually, I'll get an IR-blaster in place to change the set-top box, but it hasn't been a priority.
You were pondering "new uses" for Myth.. I used to DVD-RW shows and hand 'em to my wife, but these days the various Windows PCs run WinMyth on occasion, but most of the Myth-watching is done on.. a pair of old Xboxes. (See: XBMC and the MythTV plugin) Stream shows right from the Myth box, and keep all of the commercial skip / instant forward/back, etc. while having a nice little box that looks like it belongs in my entertainment center.
When my daughter starts to watch TV, I think I'll toss in another HD into the Myth box and DivX any DVDs we buy for her so they can be safely locked away from pb&j fingers.
Another use for Myth - I have a "mobile" profile added into mythexport and frequently re-encode shows into 3GP and move 'em onto my E815 phone. Gives me something to do while my wife shops, or any other boring situations.
You could use the same setup to encode your shows for playback on a video Ipod.
One of the best things I've done for my home Myth setup?
I bought an Xbox. Installed XboxMediaCenter and the Myth scripts.
I used to take the recorded shows and burn DVD-RWs for my wife who'd take the DVDs to one of the various TVs around the house (or the portable) to watch her shows.
Now she turns on the Xbox, picks her show, and away it goes.
Now I need a few more Xboxes..
Unrelated, I also use my Myth machine to transcode TV shows into 3gp which I then put onto a Transflash chip in my Motorola E815 and watch "TV" on my phone.
Cartoons like Southpark and Futurama work great, live action stuff isn't as great, but OK.
Really handy when you're out shopping and (1 minute later) get bored and find a bench to sit on while you wait for the rest of your party to finish their window shopping.
XBMC is pretty cool in itself, streaming Youtube, watching my DivX videos, playing MP3s, photo slideshows, along with a host of emulator options, etc.
I've been running Mythtv for several years now (I've lost count). I've used a PVR250 on a single Athlon 900 for most of that time, and it's been fine. I recently got a PVR150 working on a second box (been waiting for ivtv to work out the bugs, then waiting for me to find the time), so now I have dual tuners that'll record the "basic cable"
I'm now wanting to take the next step, and move the Digital Cable box into the server closet and feed it directly into a tuner card (likely buy a PVR500 dual-tuner or the Linux HDTV card that'll do regular AND HD). Let Myth control the cable box.
Yes, it means I won't be able to watch digital cable on the TV.
Well. Sort-of.
I finally added an Xbox with Myth to my home network. If I wanted to watch a "live" show off Digital Cable, I could just use the "liveTV" feature to pull the right Digital channel off of the Myth box.
As a bonus, I could schedule Digital channels to be recorded (finally using all of the extra HBOs, Showtime, and Speedivision channels I pay for but almost never watch).
Another bonus, I could watch one of those digital channels on any Xbox or Myth equipped TV in the house (or garage) or on my laptop. Today, I'm stuck with only the one TV with the digital tuner. Still stuck with only one live digital show at a time, but I rarely watch Live TV any more anyhow.
It's been 2 or 3 years since I set up Myth and had it working and I'm still very happy. Current setup is an Athlon 700 with a PVR250 card. My wife can pick out shows she wants and they just get recorded. Moving them to a DVD is a little clunky, but sounds like that might be improved in .20.
We record all kinds of stuff, then they get moved to DVD-RWs and they move around the house to TV to TV (or portable DVD player). Movies get archived to DVD-R.
I'd like to hook the cable box in and access the hundreds of channels, but it just hasn't been a priority.
Recently I found a patch for nuvexport that included a "Mobile" profile. Now, not only can I export to DVD, or VideoCD, or DivX, or variations.. but I can easily export to my Motorola E815 and watch Futuruma on my phone while shopping with the in-laws.
I should have an X-box soon to make a silent front-end for one of the TVs. In the meantime, I watch my shows on the Myth box, or on one of my other PCs running a Myth front-end.
Maybe by the time IPv6 finally becomes pervasive we can use all of these unsecured WAPs as part of a big Mesh network to increase bandwidth without laying more fiber (or lighting up more of the dark fiber).
Forget about people "stealing" your pipe when you're actively part of a HUGE MAN (Metro Area Net) pipe.