Verbose

[altivo]

Sometime in the last two or three days probably, I passed the 30,000 comments posted mark on LiveJournal. It will be a while, I guess before I get that far on Dreamwidth if I ever do. (I've been posting to LJ since early spring of 2004, five years plus.)

Plans for the fursuit/storytime event at work are building. Looks like we will do it. Winston the Book Wolf is the chosen book.

DTV report: this morning the two Rockford stations were gone. No signal. Went outside and found that the antenna had rotated itself back to point at Chicago during the night. No idea how that happened, as it seems to be rigidly attached to the mast and the rotator sure doesn't swing freely.

Air conditioning in the library is flaky again. We can override to force it to come on, but it isn't working from the thermostats. Of course, today is the hottest day we've had in two years.

Comments

[plushlover.livejournal.com]

Some indoor antennas made today are vastly superior to the rooftop antennas of old, and are far smaller, as well. My antenna is affixed to the back of a bookcase, it provides excellent reception, it cannot be seen, and it doesn't ever require moving/adjusting. It cost less than my converter box, too.

*smiles* Even so, it's been at least two weeks, maybe three, since I've watched any broadcast TV. Generally I only watch PBS, anyway, and when I do, I now have two PBS stations to choose from instead of just the one. Maybe I'll watch some TV next month. No guarantees, though. ;)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It's the change in frequency. Higher frequencies allow smaller antennas to do the trick, mostly.

Indoor antennas can be quite adequate if you are within a suitable distance of the transmitting tower. They don't work so well at a 50 mile distance, though. At least, none of the ones I've ever seen do.

Outdoor antennas for the new frequencies are generally smaller and lighter than the old ones, too.

[tygercowboy.livejournal.com]

*sneak sneak sneak SLURP!*

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

Most TV rotators don't have any "brakes" (like the big expensive ham rotators do). If you got some wind during the night, it might have swung back around.

You could also have TV gnomes.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*giggles and slurps back*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It seems to need de-gnoming all right, à la Harry Potter. The beam antenna is very high gain but of course that means it has a very narrow focus. The rotator is completely worn out and can't reproduce a logged position with enough accuracy. Consequently, the "sweet spot" for any given transmitter is different every time. Combined with the fact that you apparently can't just tell this thing that yes, 503 MHz is a valid channel even if there's no signal on it right this instant, it is just plain unwieldy.

By playing around and "re-scanning" dozens of times, I've found quite a lot of signals that would be usable if they had any content, which they appear not to have in my opinion. Endless "reality" shows and talk shows and cop shows are devoid of content as far as I'm concerned. But in any case, from a given antenna bearing you're likely to get at most two signals. To get two different ones, you have to move the antenna and re-scan. A full scan takes several minutes, so the whole thing is fruitless.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

*polite golf applause at sheer volume*

My AC is acting funny now too, damn it!

>.<

[altivo.livejournal.com]

If we added in your previous incarnations, you must have a significant message count too by now. ^^

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the day that they switched over to digital, I turned on the TV and had absolutely nothing. I had noticed that some of the DTV stations had disappeared, but I chalked that up to technical difficulties or whatever (and since all the TV I can get pretty much sucks, I didn't really care). I did the rescan and found all the missing signals.

I still haven't tried rotating my antenna, so you can see how much I really care :P I might get around to it if I'm really bored.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! 30,000 is an impressive amount.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

I've been online since '85, and I didn't venture beyond
email until 01.

Like a nun coming out of the convent at 40, I'm making
up for lost time.

^.~