By this I mean the ones where you install it, then outside of routine maintenance, it just works and never asks for more. Boring….NVlt getting the 5.0 software update.
Always move the Pusheen to the center before updating, otherwise you have to do it again. I don’t know why and I’m not questioning it. Yours doesn’t have a Pusheen on it? Uh, that’s a highly technical problem.
Boring backplane
Elsewhere, this Crown started losing its boringness. It started occasionally dropping output. I’ll be replacing it with a fully boring transmitter soon. I bet it’s not much more of an issue than a dried cap in the power supply.
Note to self: print a Pusheen to leave on top of the new one.
Category: radio
Shitpost Multiball
The Simpsons Pinball Party has not exactly proven itself to be a very reliable game; I’ve never played one where everything is fully functional. Malfunctions sadly seem to crop up with the garage door and mini playfield, and failure of these make most of the game inaccessible! No multiball…. On this one the upper left flipper didn’t work, so there was no way to shoot anything up there.
Just for the record, the way you have to get to multiball is to get the ball up there (open the garage door then shoot the ball in there) and the VUK (vertical up kicker) inside will send the ball to the left flipper on the mini playfield. From there, pass it directly to the right flipper or use the orbit at the back to send it to the right flipper, then shoot the lock ramp which will put it in the couch.
Yes, this is as challenging as it sounds!
So is maintaining an old RVR / Armstrong tube transmitter. Cut to avoid page spam…
Aktiv-schaum
Someday this stuff will be the new Solo Cup Jazz Pattern.
Also I have in my hands an Open Repeater Project controller to be set up to run a machine in Redding, and it seems I’m fully allowed to put a dumb macro on it that makes it say “TRI-COLOR FOAMING WAX”. What have you fools done 😀
Up the hill again…
There’s a company working to install a DMR repeater as part of their network up on one of our sites now. They chose a good time to do it – we have dry weather today, and a 20% chance of light precipitation tomorrow…. much better than the last time I was up at this site when it was unrelentingly moist, cold, and slippery mud was infesting everything. Yes, it was indeed nasty enough to necessitate the word moist, that’s how offensive it was. Now it’s just beautiful, and with the clear sunny sky I can see two of the other sites I work on from here… the one with the wind farm is showingly only little patches of snow and should be accessible again, and it’s starting to melt off of Shasta Bally over there.
I know the tall snow capped one at right is Shasta Bally – I can see our tower up there. One of the other peaks visible is Shoemaker Bally and I’m not sure which one is which.
This is beautiful sailing weather. Go hit the lake! 🙂
Tower crew at work. They just mounted the transmit antenna for their MotoTRBO Capacity Plus repeater up there next to that weird arm with the IP camera on it.
Speaking of which—
We do not know whose camera that is.
It just kind of appeared when one of the tenants was working on the site.
They did not ask us to reduce transmitter power to drop RF exposure levels to within controlled exposure limits.
The way I look at this lately…. if some fool’s gonna go do work without asking for a power reduction, they DESERVED to be warmed up a bit. 😉
JUST ASK ME FOR A POWER REDUCTION! I don’t bite….. particularly hard.
For that matter, if the camera they did not ask us for permission to install starts malfunctioning due to the RF output of the DMR repeater— welllllllll guess whose fault that is for putting it there. Bwahahaha. I’m turning into the freaking BOFH, aren’t I?
Be sure to water and fertilize your LDF4 lines so they can go into full bloom!
Panderphonics
Today I had to fix an issue in the studio of our uhhh… 18-30 oriented CHR Bullshittin’ With Bieber station and I heard a newer single from The Chainsmokers play that had the exact same synth loop as “Older”. Now That’s What I Call Bullshit!
Welp now I’m in an angry shitposting mood.
Since the early 2000s I’ve noticed a trend in how music is commercially promoted and pushed for radio airplay. Payola has always been a big thing that’s rubbed endless shitty music in our faces, but this is different…. It’s almost like the industry got too complacent to give a shit.
Now, how do you get your music promoted? Just sound like someone else who’s been heavily marketed to where they earned, or more like, bought, high positions on the charts.
Back in the 90s there was some of this going on too, but it was “hey we have this amazing vocalist and that kind of talent is hot now…”
But alas, everything now is in a colossal backslide following a big stagnation a few years ago. Remember when Ariana Grande was given the Grammy for best rock artist because there were no active rock bands with any material being released?
Five Finger Death Punch is charting for sounding like fucking Nickelback.
These artists on the Billboard chart all just sound like lousy drunken dumpster fires.
I’d rather listen to the cooling fans on the Nautel transmitters than anything on this chart.
This is why I’ll never make it on the programming side of commercial radio (is that where the actual money is??).
Oh hell don’t even get me started on “yeah uh we have this mediocre ass single that we sent back to be remastered featuring 15 seconds of vocals from this shitty famous person, FIVE PLAYS PEE HOUR PLEASE”
Ok, it’s Pizza Mountain now
From now on I have a standing rule that our site with the three ArmNOPEs is Pizza Mountain, because if I have to go up there to fix anything the company is going to have to buy me pizza in exchange for doing so.
Our engineer from the two markets down south sent me this picture of where the transmitter for the “Power” CHR station… well, it had a power…. problem. Its latest trick was to roast the primary lead to the plate transformer.
A couple weeks ago I went up there at night and reset the breaker to put that thing on air. I had no idea the reason it likely tripped was that it was slow-roasting itself to death internally. OH WELL!
So that’ll be spinach, mushrooms, extra cheese, roasted garlic, and Canadian bacon, please…. I still have to fit one of the other transmitters up there with new motors for the input tuning caps in a “nobody’s made this gearhead DC motor in two decades” situation, gee, where have I seen this before?
So, to be fair, Pizza Mountain is a ridge you get to prior to reaching a taller mountain range to the west. I tried to drive up there to explore a bit but got SNOped out, oh well! I should go up there in summer and see what’s beyond here. I know this highway eventually goes over the other side and lands in the Mendocino Forest.
The solution
So what do you do when the factory service loaner for your STL receiver (which is working fine other than having a dead display so you can’t get to the settings) arrives deaf and sounding like a dirty skipping CD?
You place the 3d printed Pusheen atop the transmitter and prepare to launch your revolt against a toxic society and eat the damn rich
Regarding my previous shitposting, the cable length from the filter output to the LNA input turned out to be maddeningly critical.
Six feet:
Three feet:
About 18 inches:
I’ll take it! My concern was mainly attenuating crap around 1 GHz that I suspect is some kinda leakage off WiSP radios…
The lever you have pulled, “brakes”, is not in service at this time
Response of filter cavity
Response of preamp: not shown as it was a boring flat line
Response of cavity followed by preamp
Response of my brain after working about 28 hours in the last two days:
Yeah I’m just gonna throw this crap in there and say Good Enough For Radio Work and go collapse for the weekend (where my mugs are safe to drink from thanks)
Yeah about that
Pay no attention the fact that this STL transmitter antenna installation looks like something generated by Shiv Integer ….
Not seen here– there’s a second pole with one more on it…. And no means of preventing the pole from turning….
Then at the other end, months ago, the vertical and horizontal got mixed up… Surprise, after fixing that, some meters now move farther to the right…
You poor STL, show us on this Smith chart where the confused engineers hurt you….
thanks i hate it
hi there, i need a combiner care package from Microwave Filter Company, thanks
Sadly, we DO actually need antennas pointed three different directions, but that’d let me eliminate one of the dishes (not seen in the picture here) that’s mounted all janky and was able to be spun around by the wind.
