[LINK] Digital TV could see viewers left in the dark [WAS: Digital TV, live in the clouds, you may not see it]

[Craig Sanders]

On Sun, Jan 20, 2008 at 07:05:06PM +1100, sylvano wrote:
> On Sunday 20 January 2008 17:28, Craig Sanders wrote:
> <snip>
> > the only time there's ever any interference is a noticable 'click' in
> > the audio and sometimes weird pixelated artifacts in the video (both
> > very short-lived) when our bathroom light is switched on or off. it's
> > an old compact-flouro. the newer CFs in all our other rooms don't cause
> > this.
> 
> Interestingly, I got that effect as well from the hand held gas lighter gun 
> for lighting my stove...

not surprising. if CFs are like standard flouros, then a spark is
required to start it glowing. and gas ligher guns generally have a
piezo-electic crystal to light the gas with a spark.

electrical sparks cause all sorts of RF noise across a very broad
frequency range (a "feature" exploited by old-fashioned spark gap
transmitters[1]...which, IIRC, nobody uses any more. they're banned most
places anyway)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter

> The other noticeable effect that surprised me was the availability    
> of regional stations (I'm in the lower north shore of Sydney) that    
> aren't there with                                                     

haven't noticed that myself, but i live in inner suburban melbourne....a
long way from any regional transmitters.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>

BOFH excuse #187:

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