I’m back! I didn’t intend to be gone for so long, but I was traveling a bit, and working on other things a bit, and there were some technical issues, excuses, excuses, excuses. I thought a traveling cartoon from 2012 might be appropriate. I hope your Memorial Day weekend was a good one; mine was. We are having the exterior woodwork painted. That noise you hear are the painters scraping and moving ladders and jiving. They are right outside my work room (Office seems a bit of an overstatement.) today, making it hard to think of anything else. They’re nice guys, and they’re doing a great job, but I’ll be glad when they’re gone.
92 responses to “Home Affront”
Debbe and GR6: I was listening to WLOF in Orlando. Don’t think I ever got a Chicago station but I know I picked up WBT (Charlotte, NC), WSB (Atlanta), and WWL (New Orleans) once or twice when the weather was right.
My dad worked for Western Union his entire adult life and was a ham radio guy too, so I had heard about “clear channel” stations. He and my brother (10 years older than I and an engineer at a local TV station) had many discussions of communications systems, most of which went way over my head. My dad (1907-1984) would have been fascinated by the computers we use today and would have loved villages like this one!
GR6: Since you remember stations reducing power, you might enjoy this old bit that our station used when it was time to do that – http://www.cflradio.net/950_WLOF_Pattern_Change.mp3
WTMJ in Milwaukee is a 50,000 watt daytime and 10,000 watt night time station. The reverse of what GR6 mentioned. Anyone know why this is that some are high wattage in day and others at night?
The biggest AM transmitter around happens to be the sun. During the day AM stations are allowed to broadcast at higher power levels so their signals will not be overpowered by the sun. At night, most stations must reduce their power so their signals will not interfere with one another. Only the clear signal stations are allowed to continue broadcasting at the higher power levels because they are far enough apart that there is little interference between them.
c x-p: You sort of stole my line, but I guess we cannot copyright one of the most common closings to a standard college lecture. Then there was the Cornell U. wildlife prof who said we’d have a quiz next time, and it was an hour exam. I managed.
Lily and Trucker: You have confused c x-p [above] and emb. I don’t think I’ve ever discussed UFOs here. In the ’70s or so, wife saw some at night driving home from a do of some sort in another town: a series of fuzzy bright lights moving across the sky. Others in the car saw them, too, and this was a sober group. Nothing in the papers the next day.
No, that’s the way it works. AM stations that were “clear-channel” stations didn’t have to reduce their power after dark since they were assigned “protected” frequencies that would not interfere with other stations. Non-clear-channel stations were required to reduce their power, because their frequencies were not protected.
Ruth Anne, those WLOF station engineers must have had way too much time on their hands. 🙂
Jackie, the obvious solution would be to keep a steel door in your bedroom for protection so you could slam it on an intruder’s arm.
And what TR said.
TR, thanks. Slept through most of EE after the gates (AND, OR, NAND, NOR.)
sandcastler™, you left out my favorite, the XOR gate!
Debbe and GR6, here’s a good one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln-XgVifUQ0
Lots of areas have strange lights that appear mysteriously like the Marfa lights. When I was a teenager there were similar lights in Crossett, Arkansas area and we’d drive up there to see the lights. They appeared pretty regularly and on a good weekend night you’d have almost a traffic jam walking on the railroad trestles to see them.
Have no idea why we didn’t all get run over by freight trains? But I did get run over by some pretty hefty football players who were ahead of us when the lights started zooming through the pine trees. They did an end run back to their cars, shoving the rest of us out of their escape route. Those light would zoom straight toward people like an oncoming train light sometime but there were no trains.
Supposed to be ghost of a dead engineer or brakeman.
Love, Jackie Monies (who loves ghost stories0
Was the station you had in mind WGN? I just did a search for high-powered am stations and that is the only 3 letter one I see for Chicago. When I worked nights I was able to get WWL out of New Orleans when the conditions were right.
Never have seen a ghost and no UFO’S of the Close Encounters type. I have seen a meteorite come down close enough that I felt the ground shake when it hit, near Montgomery, AL.
WLS-AM in Chicago still broadcasts on the clear-channel frequency of 890 kHz with 50,000 watts of power. Its current format is “talk radio”. In fact, I’m listening to it right now online on IHeartRadio. Sounds funny without static.
In today’s cartoon (5-29-14), does anyone see any significance in the fact that it appears Arlo and Janis are both wearing white socks in Panel #1, and Arlo is wearing black shoes and Janis black-and-white shoes in Panel #4?
Good morning Villagers…..
GR 😉 Yes, it was WLS out of Chicago, it came to me while I was tossing and turning in bed. The dreaded 2:00 a.m. wake-up.
Mark, loved the video, and did some Wiki on her. She does it well. I see she is on tour, with solo performances with Cheap Trick (now that would be a concert well worth seeing) and Rick Springfield. I always liked her song “We Believe”.
And I am being serious about ‘something’ in the hen house….my son and I both have experienced that sudden, dark movement out of the corner of our eyes. There will be the rustling of the hens, like the wind going through, and then all the cackling. What a rush.
Jackie, your stories gave me goose bumps…..I believe in spirits. I also believe in Angels. What years were you in Corpus Christi? I was there from ’75 until early ’87. Loved going to South Padre Island….back then you could drive on the beach, park your car on the beach, camp on the beach, and do just about anything on the beach. Good times were had by all then. Worked as Asst. Night Auditor Supervisor for the Marriott Hotel on Ocean Blvd. Spent many a day and evenings on that Island.
I am going to kill my son….after the inspection of course…if he does not stop downloading movies. He and Andrew were going through his Netflex account, looking for a movie. They came across Liam Neeson’s ‘Gray” movie…said I’d like to see it. He said he could burn me a copy…no, we don’t do that any more, I said. Not after we got a letter from our ISP, which is also our phone company, telling us that Warner Brothers contacted them and someone from this house was illegally downloading the movie “Wolf of Wall Street”…..my husband will kill him first if we are contacted again. He said he takes more precautions now…..there will be a lecture on our way to work this morning…..
Yup, GR, the colorist must have found their black crayon 🙂
Ya’ll have a blessed day
Guess who came home at 4am from work to a flooded kitchen? Guess whose “emergency assistance” calls are going unanswered? Guess whose “property mananger’s” phone number doesn’t work? Guess who is happy as he’ll her lease is almost up? I will live in my CAR before I agree to stay here any longer than I have to!
TR, was asleep most of that semester.