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Thread: Bought eww telly.

  1. #21
    Orca Whisperer PA5COR's Avatar
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    No need to use all the functions if you don't need them...
    As soon you get above 32" screens the smart tv is all you can get though, and if you really get the latest new fangled telly it is all you can get.
    With all the channels available here i don't use the gadgets on it much, sometimes a you tube video or a 4 K UHD thingy.
    Quality on satellite is better as cable, i think they use higher compression, so most my watching is HD or UHD channels on satellite.
    Just watched an UHD HDR trailer on Astra satellite, really impressive.
    "If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop
    telling the truth about them." - Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)
    “I’m not liberal/conservative, I’m anti-idiotarian.”
    At some point in the last 20 years, the left moved to the center, and the right moved into a mental institution

  2. #22
    'Grumpy old bastid' kb2vxa's Avatar
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    I miss the oldfangled TVs with two tuners, the normal turret tuner that went click click click and the tunable UFO tuner under it you also needed a UFO antenna to use. Color sets had additional color (saturation) and huge controls specifically for the UFO channels if you were lucky enough to have at least one in your area. The huge control was a must, some UFO people are blue and others are green with the occasional Earther tossed in who could be black, white, red or yellow. The yellow ones were particularly difficult when pixels were round with red, blue, and green dots, then Panasonic got pissed off and produced tubes with square pixels having red, blue, green, and YELLOW squares. NOW you get Japanese people right or DIE Yankee dog, chop chop!

    FYI, I borrowed from the 43 Chinese languages there, chop means fast as in chop suey meaning fast food. It has its origins from when Chinese Coolies were the prime labor force building the Western railroads, the cooks needing to feed a large number and didn't have all day to do it so they tossed whatever they had on hand into the wok and called it chop suey, fast food. Ah so, now you know what you thought was Chinese food is as American as apple pie. Why chop chop meaning fast fast? There is no equivalent of "very" in any Asian language, so to emphasize a word they say it twice. Reality check: Most Asian people are white, that "yellow" golden skin is rare and highly prized among them. The next time you watch a Hong Kong Kung Fu movie or a Japanese kaiju (giant monster) movie look closer at your newfangled hang on the wall TV with a screen the size of Texas that always gets the picture details right. Smart TV? That depends on your definition of "smart".
    "The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you."
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  3. #23
    "Island Bartender" KG4CGC's Avatar
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    The old UFO tuner. Home of the old, analog cellphone band.

  4. #24
    Master Navigator koØm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by KG4CGC View Post
    The old UFO tuner. Home of the old, analog cellphone band.
    Do you remember the 49 Mhz cordless phones? Talk about "Car-Phones"........I would drive around in my car with the Handset of my home phone system 'scanning' for a phone system on the same channel as mine, when I got lucky, I would make a call "because I could".


  5. #25
    'Grumpy old bastid' kb2vxa's Avatar
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    Hmmm, I called it the UFO tuner because as I was demonstrating TVs for a possible sale to a sweet elderly lady she pointed to the U on the VHF dial and asked what the UFO channel was for. No, I didn't say it was for watching space aliens. I remember it could be used for converting analog, 800MHz cell phones IIRC to a frequency on a scanner, but what nobody mentioned for some odd reason was the FCC in their infinite wisdom assigned cell channels interleaved with trunked police channels. Eventually they wised up and "rebanded" 800MHz with cell channels at one end and police channels on the other. That's when I had to update the firmware in my Uniden scanner.

    Speaking of my Uniden scanner, yes, I remember the 49MHz cordless phones. Incidentally, originally the handset transmitted on 49MHz and the base transmitted between 1600 and 1800KHz FM. That's when anybody could tweak an AM radio and using slope tuning listen in on the neighbors. I found one up the block in Elizabeth but it was all French, a Haitian numbers racket. Then I found them split between 46 and 49MHz, listening on the base frequencies there were phones jammed together to the point where they'd come and go and at peak times they were all jumbled together. I soon got tired of hearing who had eyes for who and who got lucky last night and reprogrammed those channels, I'd rather listen to the cops bust the Haitians after I turned the detectives on to the case and a new car parked in the neighborhood. Like I always say, ain't I a stinkah? Bugs Bunny had a little Crusader Rabbit in him. (;->)

    In my early daze on CB my first mobile was a white 1959 Chevy cool as hell with those wings and cat's eye tail lights I made even cooler with a 102" whip on a ball mount on that wide area surrounding the trunk lid. Under the dash was a Halicrafters CB3A with a little modification. I changed the carbon element for a crystal one in a surplus Army field phone PTT handset. I'd go cruising around talking on my "mobile phone" like the king of the hill.

    serveimage.jpg
    "The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you."
    Neil deGrasse Tyson

    73 de Warren KB2VXA
    Station powered by atomic energy, operator powered by natural gas.

  6. #26
    "Island Bartender" KG4CGC's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by koØm View Post
    Do you remember the 49 Mhz cordless phones? Talk about "Car-Phones"........I would drive around in my car with the Handset of my home phone system 'scanning' for a phone system on the same channel as mine, when I got lucky, I would make a call "because I could".
    I had an used old cordless office phone made for said environment. Under the battery cover was a rotary switch to choose between 10 channels to prevent interference between office cubicles. Unplug the base unit while the phone was off the "hook" and I could scan around via the rotary switch.
    I once tested the range between my handset and base unit. The result was staggering! 180 feet!

  7. #27
    Master Navigator koØm's Avatar
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    Remember this one?, my associate at work had one. I had the messenger 123.

    Johnson_Messenger_130A.jpg

    "I changed the carbon element for a crystal one in a surplus Army field phone PTT handset. I'd go cruising around talking on my "mobile phone" like the king of the hill."





  8. #28
    "Usual Suspect" WZ7U's Avatar
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    I do remember E.F. Johnson. Had a 123A & B. Great rigs for what they were. Remember 22A, the channel switch position?

    Like that post was...
    Moving on, my posts are not helpful

  9. #29
    Orca Whisperer PA5COR's Avatar
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    In 1977 in spring i was licensed, put a Kenwood TR7200 in my car and a 1/4 wave whip on the roof, mind you the 27 MHz was not allowed here so i kept beeing stopped by police thinking i had an illegal transmitter in the car, though i always carried the license and there were just 2000 licensed hams around then, it needed some sleek talking to stop them from taking the equipment from the car....
    All that changed when 27 MHz became legal here in the 1980's though.

    That took off big here, but by now it almost died out again.
    "If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop
    telling the truth about them." - Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)
    “I’m not liberal/conservative, I’m anti-idiotarian.”
    At some point in the last 20 years, the left moved to the center, and the right moved into a mental institution

  10. #30
    'Grumpy old bastid' kb2vxa's Avatar
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    As I recall the range of those 49MHz cordless phones WAS nearly 200ft, but WHY the tremendous overkill I don't know. My guess is to add to the base number of as I recall 4 frequencies, to step on the neighbors if they couldn't find a clear channel. Sitting at the apex of an umbrella so to speak on the second floor and the neighborhood being jammed up with kiddie phones (no adults) I heard them doing exactly that. My scanner having been tuned and tested with a sensitivity of <.1uV@20dB down (full quieting) I'm sure gave me a distinct advantage.

    "Car Phones" is an interesting description, in the 1950s RCA's line of VHF 2 way radios was branded Car Fone. I acquired 2 40W Hi Band mobiles and a 2 channel 60W Hi Band base in trade for some other junk, it was a bitch converting to 2M but I managed. At the time Motorola mics had a 1 transistor preamp and dynamic element in the standard size capsule that replaced earlier carbon elements that the RCA units used. I built a Shure "Radar O'Riley" or Green Hornet Phase II mic around it and used it on the RCA base unit bristling with tubes and an interesting push-pull 6146 final. The Shure body being a desk mic and the transmitter having plenty of gain it was operated at a comfortable arm's length and "Studio A" being anechoic I got many unsolicited "great audio" reports. It only goes to show the old saying "90% of the shack is on the roof" is only half of it, the other half is "90% of the rig is in your hand". It goes for CW too, a glass fist is awfully hard to copy.

    I remember most of the Johnson Messenger line rather well including the one made to look like a mobile phone that came about because I didn't patent my handset concept. What I remember better is their line of 1950s Vikings that found their way to CB, with 11M on the band switch they needed no modification. My motley crew (not Motley Crue) became the AM Gangstas of CB thanks to my modifications to the speech amp. The beauty of the beast was/is by replacing the 47k first audio grid resistor that was also the mic load resistor to 10-12m an Astatic D-104 flattened out and extended the frequency response to a surprisingly close match to some recording/broadcast mics.

    "Remember 22A, the channel switch position?"
    I remember it well, first on the Lafayette Comstat that later had 22A and 22B. Then the Feral Cookie Company caught wind of it, later models had a slot cut out of the selector switch. No problem, with some brass shim stock and careful soldering the gap was bridged. The evolution of the PL9 PLL chip led me to replacing the channel selector rotary switch with a 3 position lever switch (some techs used thumb wheels) and opened it up to 250 up and 250 down centered on channel 14. Of course the rigs didn't have sufficient bandwidth for 500 channels, but freeband above and below the legal 40 channels was born.

    CB holds an important position in my radio life that began in 1957 with an All American 5 table radio at night and unfortunately ended when I found myself in a no antennas situation. It was an experimenter band for me and my friends who went on to Amateur Radio. It was also the most fun band, we did "AM Gangsta shit" you just cant do on Amateur Radio unless you want a Rileygram like the WA1HLR testicling letter that went down in INFAMY........
    Last edited by kb2vxa; 06-28-2019 at 08:01 AM. Reason: >< mixed up
    "The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you."
    Neil deGrasse Tyson

    73 de Warren KB2VXA
    Station powered by atomic energy, operator powered by natural gas.

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