From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Oct 20 01:18:25 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9K5IPT12060; Wed, 20 Oct 2004 01:18:25 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 01:18:25 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410200518.i9K5IPT12060@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V23 #500 TELECOM Digest Wed, 20 Oct 2004 01:18:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 500 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Identity Badge Worn Under Skin Approved for Use in Health Care (Joseph) Help Me Identify/Repair Power Transformers (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Radio Questions (Robert Bonomi) Re: Radio Questions (R. T. Wurth) Re: Radio Questions (J Kelly) Re: Lee's ABC of the Telephone (Jason) Re: Verizon Taking Lessons From Hooterville Telephone Company (HorneTD) Re: Privacy Eroding, Bit by Byte (Lisa Hancock) Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! Nice Place to Work!) (Lisa Hancock) Re: Sinclair's Disgrace (Lisa Hancock) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joseph Subject: Identity Badge Worn Under Skin Approved for Use in Health Care Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 16:54:49 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com By BARNABY J. FEDER and TOM ZELLER Jr. The Food and Drug Administration has cleared the way for a Florida company to market implantable chips that would provide easy access to individual medical records. The approval, which the company announced yesterday, is expected to bring to public attention a simmering debate over a technology that has evoked Orwellian overtones for privacy advocates and fueled fears of widespread tracking of people with implanted radio frequency tags, even though that ability does not yet exist. Applied Digital Solutions, based in Delray Beach, Fla., said that its devices, which it calls VeriChips, could save lives and limit injuries from errors in medical treatment. And it expressed hope that such medical uses would accelerate the acceptance of under-the-skin ID chips as security and access-control devices http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/14/technology/14implant.html?oref=login&th ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 17:05:30 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Help Me Identify/Repair/Replace a Power Transformer Here is a question for the group regards 'low voltage' electrical current. I have two transformers: One is Radio Shack, 'clean' DC output, 13.8 Volts at 3 Amps. Its like a little box, a 'powerhouse' kind of thing. It has a 'reset' button on the back in case the output goes out due to overload or a short. $39 at Radio Shack. I had been using it to run a small portable TV set and a scanner radio, such as would be plugged into a car cigarette lighter and run from a car battery. The other transformer is an Intermatic, model is 'Malibu 88-T' and it does output of 12 Volts and 1 Amp. It has a clock built in which allows it to be automatically turned on/off as desired. Its purpose is to service outside lights along a sidewalk for example. Using 12 or 14 gauge wire, a series of little lights strung over a distance of 50 feet will light up. Total wattage allowed is 88 Watts between all the bulbs, which are 5-10 watts each. It is available from Ace Hardware here in Indy also for $39. Are these two power supplies interchangeable (ignoring the fact that the Intermatic has a built in clock since I have other timers I can use)? How do you calculate volts/amps to watts? I am not going to have $78 to spare this month (barely can spare $39 for one of them), so am curious to know what I can get away with or not get away with. PAT ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Radio Questions Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 22:49:01 +0000 In article , John Mayson wrote: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I believe it was in Pittsburgh, PA >> in 1921. Unlike the rules today, where 'W' is east of the Mississippi >> River, and 'K' stations are to the west of the same river, the station >> in Pittsburgh was K-something, but I have forgotten its call sign >> for sure. Another early station, perhaps the second, was WBBM in >> Chicago, which began as a ham/shortwave station several years earlier >> in Joliet, Illinois, but it became an *official* broadcasting station >> when its owner got his license from the Federal Radio Commission (the >> precursor to the present time FCC) to use the call sign WBBM and moved >> his operation to the Broadmoor Hotel on the north side of Chicago, >> also in 1921. PAT] > You're thinking of KDKA. IIRC, there's some controversy about whether > they were the first radio station in this country. > Callsigns came to us from the maritime world. Back when ships used CW > (Morse code) to communicate, sending "Portsmouth this is the USS John > Hancock" was a little unwieldy, so much of the world adopted callsigns. > Ever wonder how the US ended up with W and K (we also have N and part of > the A series too)? We were late. Much of the world adopted callsigns > before we did, so Great Britain got "G", the Commonwealth ended up with > "V" for Queen Victoria, Germany got "D", France got "F", etc. We had to > take what was left. > Originally coastal stations on the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico got "W" > callsigns and Pacific stations got "K". When we started assigning > callsigns to broadcast stations some Texas stations like WFAA and WOAI > ended up with W's. Pittsburgh's KDKW and Philly's KYW were allowed to > keep their pre-existing callsigns. The government quickly redrew the > line along the Mississippi because the more populous east was eating > up too many "W" callsigns. > I only know of one exception to the Mississippi rule. The FCC allowed a > Waco, TX TV station (and possibly radio) to adopt WACO. You havn't looked very hard. Ones I grew up with: WHO (AM, FM, and TV), Des Moines, Iowa. WOI (AM, FM, and TV -- university owned, TV station since sold), Ames, Iowa WWL Waterloo, Iowa. Intrestingly, KWWL is in the same town. WSUI Iowa City, Iowa Also the home of KSUI. *SAME* owner, even. :) WOW Omaha, Nebraska WMT Cedar Rapids, Iowa Some more that I dug up: WOC Davenport, Iowa WRR Dallas, Texas WBAP Ft. Worth, Texas WCAL Northfield, Minnesota WDAF Kansas City, Missouri WDAY Fargo, North Dakota WFAA Dallas, Texas WIBW Topeka, Kansas WJOD Asbury, Iowa WJON St. Cloud, Minnesota WNAX Yankton, South Dakota WOAI San Antonio, Texas WOWT Omaha, Nebraska WTAW College Station, Texas WWLS Moore, Oklahoma WWJO St. Cloud, Minnesota WYRQ Little Falls, Minnesota and, some hair-splitting (Metro area crosses the river, transmitter _could_ be on the Illinois side of the Missippi): WIL St. Louis, Missouri WRTH St. Louis, Missouri WCCO Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota WLTE Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota WMCN St. Paul, Minnesota These I can't locate on the map. WBJI Blackduck, Minnesota WIRN Buhl, Minnesota And, yes, WACO Waco Texas. ------------------------------ From: rwurth@att.net (R. T. Wurth) Subject: Re: Radio Questions Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 00:24:18 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet In article , John Mayson wrote: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I believe it was in Pittsburgh, PA >> in 1921. Unlike the rules today, where 'W' is east of the Mississippi >> River, and 'K' stations are to the west of the same river, the station >> in Pittsburgh was K-something, but I have forgotten its call sign >> for sure. Another early station, perhaps the second, was WBBM in >> Chicago, which began as a ham/shortwave station several years earlier >> in Joliet, Illinois, but it became an *official* broadcasting station >> when its owner got his license from the Federal Radio Commission (the >> precursor to the present time FCC) to use the call sign WBBM and moved >> his operation to the Broadmoor Hotel on the north side of Chicago, >> also in 1921. PAT] > You're thinking of KDKA. IIRC, there's some controversy about whether > they were the first radio station in this country. > Callsigns came to us from the maritime world. Back when ships used CW > (Morse code) to communicate, sending "Portsmouth this is the USS John > Hancock" was a little unwieldy, so much of the world adopted callsigns. > Ever wonder how the US ended up with W and K (we also have N and part of > the A series too)? We were late. Much of the world adopted callsigns > before we did, so Great Britain got "G", the Commonwealth ended up with > "V" for Queen Victoria, Germany got "D", France got "F", etc. We had to > take what was left. > Originally coastal stations on the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico got "W" > callsigns and Pacific stations got "K". When we started assigning > callsigns to broadcast stations some Texas stations like WFAA and WOAI > ended up with W's. Pittsburgh's KDKW and Philly's KYW were allowed to > keep their pre-existing callsigns. The government quickly redrew the > line along the Mississippi because the more populous east was eating > up too many "W" callsigns. > I only know of one exception to the Mississippi rule. The FCC allowed a > Waco, TX TV station (and possibly radio) to adopt WACO. > John Mayson > Austin, Texas, USA There were some W-s, WEW and WIL, licensed to serve St. Louis, west of the Mississippi, and thus signing as WEW, St. Louis, and WIL, St. Louis (technically broadcast radio/tv call signs had to include the community of license as well as the call letters). These would appear to be breaking the Mississippi rule. I can think of a few possible reasons that might make them technically non-exceptions. It is possible that they transmitted from across the river in Illinois, and that the rule referred to transmitter site, not to community of licensure, or it may have been that they were originally licensed to E. St. Louis, IL, and then petitioned to move their license to St. Louis. Does anyone know the real explanation? Were these stations exceptions, too, or were they special cases? Rich Wurth / rwurth@att.net / Rumson, NJ 07760 USA ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: Radio Questions Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 20:52:18 -0500 Organization: http://newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 02:53:52 GMT, John Mayson wrote: > Originally coastal stations on the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico got "W" > callsigns and Pacific stations got "K". When we started assigning > callsigns to broadcast stations some Texas stations like WFAA and WOAI > ended up with W's. Pittsburgh's KDKW and Philly's KYW were allowed to > keep their pre-existing callsigns. The government quickly redrew the > line along the Mississippi because the more populous east was eating > up too many "W" callsigns. > I only know of one exception to the Mississippi rule. The FCC allowed a > Waco, TX TV station (and possibly radio) to adopt WACO. I know of several "W" call stations in both Iowa and Nebraska (WMT, WHO, WOI, WOWT, WSUI and I am sure many others). ------------------------------ From: Jason Subject: Re: Lee's ABC of the Telephone Date: 19 Oct 2004 14:45:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Many thanks Jim! I picked up more than a few volumes from that site today. I'll probably be grabbing an edition of the "Principles of Electricity Applied To Telephone and Telegraph Work" as well. -Jason ------------------------------ From: HorneTD Subject: Re: Verizon Taking Lessons From Hooterville Telephone Company Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 01:15:57 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Tony Pelliccio wrote: > I recently moved three blocks east of my former location and contacted > Verizon to move the line. > I was assured that at 8:30AM on the 15th service at the old address > would cut and the new address would be active at 10:30AM. > Service at the old location cut at 11:30PM on Friday but the new > location wasn't up yet. I've been going around and around with Verizon > for days about this. They say the switch is telling them service is > fine and to find my network interface and they'll take it from there. > What I found was I'm pair #14 on a 50 pair breakout box with screw > posts and nuts to hold the wiring down. I had to ANAC about 30 lines > before I found mine. > Thing is, I know I'm going to have to wire my jacks as whoever did the > wiring before was a hack. But I had this faint image of having to > climb a telephone pole to make a call that harkens back to Green Acres > and the Hooterville Telephone Company. > Needless to say -- the CATV line is in the house and the HSI is > getting installed Thursday so I just might port my service to Vonage > and be done with the stodgy phone company once and for all. Just be aware that voice over cable requires electric power at both ends of the circuit and several places in between. In the event of a power outage your phone service dies. Tom H [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A suggestion has been made here in this Digest a few times that to eliminate the problem of a lack of power due to a storm, or fallen wires or whatever, use a UPS for the VOIP phone adapter and your modem. This will allow you to make emergency calls during the power outage. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Privacy Eroding, Bit by Byte Date: 19 Oct 2004 19:41:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Jack Decker wrote: >> Information users are not only big corporations, but also small >> businesses, who legitimately need to know the credit worthiness of >> customers _before_ they risk their limited resources. Otherwise >> they'd have to have payment in advance which isn't a good idea. > Um, why not? Where did we ever get the idea that it's a good idea to > spend money we don't yet have? I should've elaborated what I meant. Say you're a homeowner and you order a new central heater/air conditioner installation, with payment due upon completion of the work. Now the contractor, having laid out his money to buy the units and his time to install them, doesn't want to get burned when he is ready to get paid. Sure he has legal recourse, but that's slow and iffy. The contractor can check your credit quickly and if you have a deadbeat or bad check history, decline your order or require pre-payment. Unfortunately, too many people ditch their obligations with bad checks or no payment and small business people can't afford the losses. > ... And I think that up until the 1950's or so, most > everyone felt that way. Then along came the pushers of credit cards, > and somehow we got to a point where it was just considered normal to > live beyond our means, while paying the credit card companies usurious > interest rates. Actually, installment buying has been around since the 1920s and widely used by consumers to buy new electric appliances that were coming out in those days. Department stores had charge codes and if you spread out your payments, your interest rates were high. I think in more recent years people have been using Visa/Mastercards more and more for smaller purchases they previously used cash, such as a pizza dinner. I'm not sure that's a good idea. As to home mortgages, small down payments and govt guarantees date from WW II for veterans and helped a big portion of society get their first owned home. However, today I see a lot of people buy a house with very little down and fail to pay for it and lose it. The govt ends up eating foreclosure costs. Other creditors get screwed. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I quite agree with the original author that we should not spend money we don't have. At least not in a frivilous fashion. But it is good to have one or two debit cards to use in emergencies plus a *very limited line of credit* on a credit card to use as needed. I had to take one of my two cats to Doctor Epp's Animal Hospital about two weeks ago. I would have been hung out, high and dry, as the saying goes if I had not had my very small, high interest credit card to use for her treatments. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work!) Date: 19 Oct 2004 20:07:50 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Mark Crispin wrote: >> From the 1930s to 1950s, a consortum led by General Motors and tire >> and oil interests bought out city street railways and converted them >> to buses supplied by the consortum. This was not the only reason >> cities lost their streetcars, but it was a significant contributor and >> accelerated the loss. > I have heard this claim many times but have seen scant evidence of a > conspiracy. Rather, it seems that companies in the *transportation* > business consolidated. I'm not sure what you're asking. It is a well documented fact that General Motors with several other major vehicle suppliers had a company known as National City Lines buy up streetcar companies and convert the properties to buses, supplied by the parent companies of NCL. I did not label this a "conspiracy". In 1974 Congress held hearings on this issue in light of the energy crisis. I do know in the case of Philadelphia, the existing management intended to retain many streetcar routes and was buying modern new cars for them. When NCL took over it promptly purchased 1,000 GMC buses and quickly converted many streetcar routes to bus. Observers (former mgmt employees) have said that NCL curtailed maintenance to save money. In any event, it was good business for the bus, tire, and fuel manufacturers involved, but not necessarily in the best interests of the riding public. > Streetcars, while quaint, have limitations. Yes, they do. But in certain situations they are superior. They held more people and accelerated faster than a bus did, providing faster and more comfortable service. However, in street service they get blocked behind stuck cars. The older models (pre 1930) were noisy and rough riding, but the 1930 and onward, especially the PCC* cars were very nice. *PCC was an industry top-down new design of a streetcar with high comfort and performance and efficiency in mind. Anyone lucky enough to ride the Newark (NJ) City Subway before new cars got to see how smooth and quiet they were. The design was copied in Europe and thousands of cars were built there. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Streetcars have very few limitations. > They are actually preferred, IMO, in various ways. Trolley busses are > better, however (the distinction being trolleys run with overhead > power lines (i.e. catenary poles) but rubber tires rather than wheels > like railroad cars. Chicago Transit Authority had both street cars at > one time, and trolley busses until later, into the 1960's on the latter. Chicago got a huge new fleet of PCC cars, but then decided to convert to bus. They scrapped the nearly new PCC cars and used the parts to build El cars. (Contrary to myth, the cars were not simply converted to be El cars since too many elements were not compatible). Some of those El cars ended their careers in suburban Philadelphia as emergency replacements on a suburban line. (Supposedly this included the one Bob Newhart rode in the intro to his TV show.) This suburban line also earlier purchased the North Shore "Electroliners" which were an unbelievable delight. They're retired in museums now. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For readers not familiar, Lisa's use of the term 'El' is short for 'elevated', the type of rapid transit system very common in Chicago. Not many people are aware of the fact that the earlier (two generations ago) elevated cars were largely built from modified/re-worked 'Green Hornet' street cars (the PCC cars Lisa mentions.) Bob Newhart boarded and exited an elevated car at the Merchandise Mart station on the Ravenswood branch line. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Sinclair's Disgrace Date: 19 Oct 2004 20:25:28 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Joseph wrote: > What Sinclair is going to do is *demand* that the stations that they > control pump this out to the public pre-empting other programming. > It's hardly the same thing. It's his personal stations, so he is not "demanding" anything, but merely showing what he feels like showing, as any station owner may do. A TV station owner is free to show F/911 if it so chooses. He may take a loss on revenues if nobody few people watch it or he can't get sponsors for the time. I think the guy is being sleazy for doing this, but he's within his rights. I also don't think it will impact the election, indeed the stunt may turn people off, esp if their desired viewing is pre-empted. BTW, FDR, who expertly used radio to communicate directly to the people, didn't like radio station owners. He didn't like newspaper owners either (some were notoriously hostile to him) but he couldn't do anything about them. He _could_ do something about radio stations and had the early FCC develop ownership rules. Nixon and Johnson got a lot of flack for complaining to TV execs and threatening their licenses, but FDR was doing the same thing only quietly. BTW, NBC used own what is ABC today, back then there was NBC Red and NBC Blue. During WW II the govt ordered NBC to divest and thus ABC was born. Pat (Sylvester) Weaver wrote a book about the early days of the TV industry. (I forgot the title). I do recommend it and it describes a lot of the stuff that went on behind the scenes of the networks. I have a feeling that General Sarnoff, head of RCA and NBC, and Paley, head of CBS, were some very tough cookies who you'd better not alienate. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You may be interested in a show to be aired on October 27 at (I think) 10 PM eastern/9 central on TV Land, called "Politics and Prime Time". Among other things, they are going to be showing *ancient* political advertising clips from the days of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Bush the First, etc. That will be followed by a one hour rarely seen 'Tour of the White House' which was produced for CBS when Jacqueline Kennedy was the First Lady, 1961-63. TV Land has been doing promotions for it for several weeks now, including the infamous one of Barry Goldwater (who ran against Kennedy as I recall) with his taken out of context remark about the hydrogen bomb (or H-Bomb). We see the mushroom cloud in the background, Goldwater in the foreground and a voice-over informing us that "Goldwater says 'the H-Bomb is just another weapon ...' just another weapon ??" the voice asks incredulously. Remember how Goldwater was thought to be such a war hawk when he was running, and all the smears against him by the Democrats? And his Democratic opponent, John Kennedy, the Republicans hastened to remind us continually everytime they got a chance, was a (gasp!) Roman Catholic, and if *he* got elected, before long, the (gasp!) Pope would be running America, 'since all Catholics have to obey the Pope.' The other good one TV Land has shown almost daily of late is Bush the First telling us "what America needs is a family structure like the Walton's, not Homer Simpson." Smears and innuendo are nothing new at election time, are they, Lisa? Anyway, check out 'Politics and Primetime' on TV Land, October 27 for some of the good old-fashioned smear campaigns they used to do in the 1950-1980 era of television. Some of the stuff they get away with saying on national TV in those days was incredible, almost like today. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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