Thursday, February 21, 2008

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jason said... “....hey, here is the site i was talking about where i made the extra cash, I was making about $900 extra a month...”

I doubt anyone much reads this here blog.
616 hits (as of today, Thursday, February 21, 2008) on my profile — which I guess is pretty good. But only a few comments; most of which appear to be auto-generated.
Most are spam: like the one above.
And every time I mention HD radio I get a comment about how HD radio is the devil’s handiwork. Probably auto-generated by a pro satellite-radio blogger. I bet this post auto-generates a response — how HD radio is mucking up the entire radio industry — it has “HD radio” in it.
I got a comment from Bryan Mahoney when I did the “Well Bryan..........” story — so far the onliest valid comment.
But Bryan knows me, and is one of the vaunted Ne’er-do-Wells.
—Which means he is one of the people who get e-mails of everything I write.
I don’t take the blog very seriously; all it is is everything that goes on FlagOut and/or goes to the Ne’er-do-Wells.
Although any more, stuff that’s no longer posted to FlagOut gets thrown on the blog, or e-mailed to the Ne’er-do-Wells.
For example, the trains things are so long, as are the monthly calendar reports, I no longer fly them on FlagOut. Wouldn’t wanna bore anyone. I only e-mail that to 44 — since it’s trains-junk.
I only do the blog because I can — and Marcy suggested I should.
She is/was my number-one Ne’er-do-Well: the first one I e-mailed my stuff to.
Turned out she was saving everything in a ‘pyooter-folder on her rig at the mighty Mezz.
She has since moved to the Boston area, married Mahoney; but still gets my e-mails. (Together they drive about in fear of every Harley, for fear of encountering the dreaded almighty Bluster-King on one of his tub-thumping conservative rages).
I’ve suggested a few times that I stop; but she says “Don’t stop — we read your stuff every night.”
But the blog was just an addition — and only because I could do it. My prime audience is the Ne’er-do-Wells.
The blog and the Ne’er-do-Wells also require footnotes — something I hardly ever do with FlagOut. FlagOut people know what the Pennsy is, and the “Big-Block” and “Linda” and “Transit.”
—But suppose some poor geek in Californy hits my blog; he’d not have the slightest idea what I was talking about.
Some of the Ne’er-do-Wells wouldn’t either, which is why they get the footnotes too: e.g. “‘Hunderd’” is how my blowhard brother-in-Boston noisily insists ‘hundred’ is spelled.”
—Plus my writing has become a pursuit — a fun way of killing time.
But I wouldn’t wanna bore anyone. Which is why FlagOut has become second-fiddle.

  • The “Ne’er-do-Wells” are an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to.
  • “FlagOut” is our family’s web-site, named that because I had a mentally-retarded kid-brother (Down Syndrome) who lived at home, and loudly insisted the flag be flown every day. “Flag-Out! Sun comes up, the flag goes up! Sun goes down, the flag comes down.” I fly the flag partly in his honor. (He died at 14 in 1968.)
  • “44” (“Agent-44”) is my brother-in-Delaware’s onliest son Tom. He recently graduated college as a computer-engineer. Like me, Tom is a railfan.
  • “Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Boston.
  • The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over two years ago. Best job I ever had.
  • “The almighty Bluster-King” is my macho, loudmouthed brother-from-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He rides a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and has no brook with so-called “liberilas” (liberals). (That’s how he insists it’s spelled; and no one dare argue with him about it lest they get smacked.)
  • “Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that tanked in about eight years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches. It was made in various displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. “Linda” is my wife of 40 years. “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years.

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  • 1 Comments:

    Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Yes, HD Radio is jamming our broadcast bands:

    "What Are We Doing to Ourselves, Exactly?"

    "IBOC FM Interference Has Been Reported in Several Cases Where FCC Contours Provide Inadequate Protection."

    http://tinyurl.com/yt286v

    "HD Interference: Not Just For AM Anymore"

    "Radio World Engineering Extra dropped a bomb this month with a very provocative cover story: 'What Are We Doing to Ourselves, Exactly?' Written by Doug Vernier, the man who authored the technical specifications for an ongoing Corporation for Public Broadcasting-sponsored HD Radio interference analysis, the report is the first of its kind to document interference between FM-HD stations around the country. Using anecdotal reportage, some sophisticated contour-mapping, and presumably 'early data' from the CPB study, Vernier's article conclusively proves how stations running in hybrid HD/analog mode can (and do) interfere somewhat significantly with not only themselves, but their neighbors on the FM dial."

    http://diymedia.net/archive/1207.htm#122307

    "Citadel Halts AM Nighttime IBOC Operation Amid Complaints"

    "An excerpt from his memo to staff reads: In response to the lackluster performance, the limited benefit and various reports of significant interference, Citadel is suspending nighttime AM HD operations at this time. Please reinstate your previous procedures for daytime-only HD operation as soon as possible.”

    http://www.radioworld.com/pages/s.0121/t.8847.html

    "Editorial: AM IBOC in Distress?"

    "Citadel Director of Corporate Engineering Martin Stabbert embodied questions about the efficacy of full-time AM HD when he ordered all his AMs that had already converted to cease transmitting HD at night, using language that must have given Ibiquity officials heartburn. Separately and for different immediate reasons, Cox, in a “let’s wait and see” move, has tried HD on most of its AM stations but is taking it off the air day and night, once tested at each facility."

    http://www.rwonline.com/pages/s.0044/t.9917.html

    "AM Broadcasters Back Away from HD Deployment"

    "This is a major setback for the adoption of HD Radio, especially on the AM dial, and Citadel is the first large broadcast conglomerate to back away from full deployment of the HD broadcast technology. Although the company's gone out of its way not to characterize its move an indictment of iBiquity's proprietary digital broadcast standard, the problems with AM HD broadcast interference are well-known and -documented."

    http://diymedia.net/archive/1007.htm#101307

    "Left in the dark"

    "Local ratings show that plenty of Pocono listeners tune in to AM 770. But about two weeks ago, WABC radio became impossible to hear in the Poconos after sundown. And although the daytime signal is still strong, WABC it is not likely to he heard here in the dark again. What happened. An advancement in broadcast technology. WABC flipped the switch for HD Radio. Something many stations are doing with, so far, little notice from the public."

    http://tinyurl.com/282tnj

    "Night of the Bees"

    "Radio listeners across America are trying to hide from a monster, but there is no shelter. After spending its adolescence in technical trials during daytime hours, IBOC has now come out at night... For example, in New York City, WOR broadcasts on 710 kilohertz. When it turns on its IBOC equipment, the digital noise it produces can be heard on 690, 700, 720 and 730 kilohertz with a reduced fidelity analog audio signal remaining on 710…"

    http://karlzuk.blogspot.com/2007/09/night-of-bees.html

    "AM HD Radio 24 x7 as of September 14, 2007"

    "The HD Radio Interference, we will coin it HDRI, is characterized as a loud obnoxious frying egg noise on top of an AM radio station’s analog signal. Here at PopularWireless HQ the kitchen is open and the eggs are cooking big time. A favorite here has been New York’s famous WABC where many enjoy listening to Coast-to-Coast AM in the early mornings. WABC is now plagued by HDRI making listening impossible at times. Across the AM dial the analog receiver is sizzling away."

    http://www.popularwireless.com/blog1/2007/09/22/hd-radio-24-x7-as-of-september-14-2007/

    And, this is NOT an automated post.

    3:19 PM  

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