HAM stuff….

Oh, a good quote from tonight. I'm sitting here on the W8OAK 440 repeater, and you can hear WFM audio blaring in over top of it. Becky's like
"What the hell, you can't play music over ham radio…"
"Erm, that's cable leakage. Comcast has a bad amp somewhere nearby. *"
*she listens intently to the sound, then looks at the clock* "That's gotta be Law and Order, SVU"
"That's sick. You know that, right?"
"Yea, now I'm torn, I hate cable TV, but I like the content!"
"You should be like me and hate both.."

* Yes, I know cable leakage is something the cableco is responsible for taking care of, but I didn't have the time or equipment to track it down at the time. I've taken mental note of the Freq and location though, so if someone wants to go fox hunting…..

28 thoughts on “HAM stuff….”

  1. Hook some of us local sparks-geeks up!

    I fookin' hate Comcrap.

    Lets just say that once, one of their distro amps that they refused to fix (can we say RF hash on 200MHz of spectrum, boys and girls?) was the bane of my existence for a while at my last apartment.

    1. Sounds like as good of a reason as any to try and find a way to burn out the amp, or find it yourself and shut it down.

      If I recall correctly, the FCC is really interested in cable interference the provider won't fix.

      444.315Mhz @ Giddins and Harmon in Auburn Hills.

      http://maps.yahoo.com/maps_result?ed=.aS1Pup_0Tq1JRyVRVDPb0TA8mj4cPSmruAsfQ–&csz=Auburn+Hills%2C+MI&country=us&resize=s

      Might be a bit off frequency, as the front end filtering in my VX-1R is shit. But I could hear it clear as day when I turned the squelch off.

      1. Ahem. It had a little accident because of my friend Mr. Ball Peen.

        Shame on the cableco for leaving it at ground level.

        I'd also get another receiver to verify this.

        Any HT that does more than two bands, hell, make that three bands, has exactly JACK SHIT for filtering because of all the useless features KenYaeCom stuffs in, plus the small size.

        My W-32A's online support FAQ (@ icom.com) states not to hook any kind of gain antenna to the HT, otherwise hilarity ensues.
        MFJ makes a pretty penny on intermod filters we shouldn't have to buy.

        I've had strange mix products with some gear that had to do with the multiple running VFOs inside the unit.

        Just saying, is all.

        73es.

      2. Ahem. It had a little accident because of my friend Mr. Ball Peen.

        Shame on the cableco for leaving it at ground level.

        I'd also get another receiver to verify this.

        Any HT that does more than two bands, hell, make that three bands, has exactly JACK SHIT for filtering because of all the useless features KenYaeCom stuffs in, plus the small size.

        My W-32A's online support FAQ (@ icom.com) states not to hook any kind of gain antenna to the HT, otherwise hilarity ensues.
        MFJ makes a pretty penny on intermod filters we shouldn't have to buy.

        I've had strange mix products with some gear that had to do with the multiple running VFOs inside the unit.

        Just saying, is all.

        73es.

        1. *looks at the address label becky handed him*

          I had his first and last name, and full street address. Since callsigns are public record, you can look up who a callsign belongs to, or you can look up a person and see if they have a callsign. πŸ™‚

    1. Your job will be securing the 120v generator, the rectifier and the high voltage capacitors.

      Then hooking them up, because I'm sure as shit not gonna get electrocuted.

      But for all this you get to hit the button and hear every cable amp in a 3 square mile area go "poof!". πŸ™‚

          1. If you're daring enough to try to break into a central office, and pull live rectifiers and battery chains off, you'll have to rent a car, because -everyone- will remember my truck. Each one of these batteries is a huge 48vdc battery. The rectifier shelf is several racks full of large, humming equipment, and physical security of the equipment is the only type of security they really have πŸ™‚

          2. Not very big, but they have lightning supression that we have to bypass. I need a low voltage, high amperage source to bridge the gap.

          3. No, they're far more dangerous than this, and we can't shut them off to hook them up properly, besides, they'd probably arc straight to ground and just kill us all.

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