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The Telecom Digest for October 31, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 277 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: Edison's powrer network (Was Re: Telegraph turns 150 (Steven)
A national test of the Emergency Alert System (Monty Solomon)
Re: A national test of the Emergency Alert System (danny burstein)
Re: Edison's powrer network (Was Re: Telegraph turns 150 (HAncock4)
60 hz as a time standard (Martin Bose)
Re: 60 hz as a time standard (David Clayton)
Re: 60 hz as a time standard (Thad Floryan)
Re: QR Codes (was A quizzical response to the new bar codes) (Steve Kostecke)

====== 30 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======

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Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2011 18:51:12 -0700 From: Steven <diespammers@ikillspammers.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Edison's powrer network (Was Re: Telegraph turns 150 Message-ID: <j8iaih$s87$1@dont-email.me> On 10/29/11 3:00 PM, David Scheidt wrote: > HAncock4<withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> wrote: > :On Oct 27, 6:50 pm, Thad Floryan<t...@thadlabs.com> wrote: > > > :Having a DC local network was common in many places, and could've > :lasted a long time. An IBM catalog of the 1930s listed equipment in > :both AC and DC versions. > > Was that 120V DC (or so), or 48 V DC? Telco plant is 48V DC, and it's > very common for computing equipment installed in telco faciilites to > be so as well, beause it makes power distribution easier. (And, of > course, you can run it off the great honkin' battery plant when the > commercial power fails.) I woulnd't be surprised that IBM were making > equipment for that market, for billing calculations, for instance, but > I'm not aware of it. > > In the early 80's IBM made a computer system that added electronic options for old Step offices, it was a total mess and they sat in place for years after they were out of service since neither IBM or Bank of America who owned them wanted to pay to remove them. In time we junked them out. They were called System 7. -- The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2011 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co.
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:57:42 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: A national test of the Emergency Alert System Message-ID: <p06240896cad36a0d7274@[10.0.1.9]> The first national test of the U.S.A.'s Emergency Alert System is scheduled for Wednesday, November 9 and all participants of the system are required to participate. The participants include TV stations, radio stations, cable TV systems, satellite TV systems, and wireline (telephone line) video systems. Participants classified as non- participating national sources are required by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission (the FCC) to participate in the national test, too, even though they may choose not to relay national alerts at other times. The test is scheduled to begin at 1:00 PM (Central) on November 9 and last about three minutes, which would be longer than a regular monthly test of the Emergency Alert System. The maximum limit for all other alerts, including alerts issued during tests, of the Emergency Alert System is two minutes. References: Emergency Alert System Nationwide Test http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/emergency-alert-system-nationwide-test FEMA, FCC Announce Nationwide Test Of The Emergency Alert System http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=55722 Emergency Alert System http://transition.fcc.gov/pshs/services/eas/
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2011 21:11:26 +0000 (UTC) From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: A national test of the Emergency Alert System Message-ID: <j8kehu$1r8$1@reader1.panix.com> In <p06240896cad36a0d7274@[10.0.1.9]> Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> writes: >The first national test of the U.S.A.'s Emergency Alert System is >scheduled for Wednesday, November 9 and all participants of the system >are required to participate. The participants include TV stations, >radio stations, cable TV systems, satellite TV systems, and wireline >(telephone line) video systems. >References: >Emergency Alert System Nationwide Test > >http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/emergency-alert-system-nationwide-test > >FEMA, FCC Announce Nationwide Test Of The Emergency Alert System > >http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=55722 > >Emergency Alert System > >http://transition.fcc.gov/pshs/services/eas/ > I've put a copy of the Public Service Advertisement they've been running to let people know about this over at: http://www.dburstein.com/video/eas-alert.mov (about 4.5 megs). Curiously, the FCC states that the NOAA All Hazards Radio system is NOT part of this test. -- _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2011 23:52:36 -0700 (PDT) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Edison's powrer network (Was Re: Telegraph turns 150 Message-ID: <c1917eb4-75a1-49c9-b729-f42338bd491c@eh5g2000vbb.googlegroups.com> On Oct 29, 6:00 pm, David Scheidt <dsche...@panix.com> wrote: > Was that 120V DC (or so), or 48 V DC? Telco plant is 48V DC, and it's > very common for computing equipment installed in telco faciilites to > be so as well, beause it makes power distribution easier. (And, of > course, you can run it off the great honkin' battery plant when the > commercial power fails.) I woulnd't be surprised that IBM were making > equipment for that market, for billing calculations, for instance, but > I'm not aware of it. I don't know the DC voltage for IBM equipment that took it. I would guess it was the standard voltage used by DC installations of the era. Billing was a major application for IBM's punched card tabulating machines, and the Bell System employed plenty of those machines. Indeed, they used a punched-card as the turnaround-document into the 1980s. An IBM history suggests IBM halted its own modem development of the 1950s to avoid upsetting AT&T which was a major customer of IBM equipment. But the billing departments were not necessarily located in the same building as the switch gear. Often the billing department was located in its own separate office building along with other administrative workers (ie service reps, other accounting, personnel, engineering, legal, etc.)
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2011 8:42:11 -0700 From: "Martin Bose" <martyb@sonic.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: 60 hz as a time standard Message-ID: <01E7926BAA1691C7A85887F9331D79D8@sonic.net> > At some point in the 1930s or shortly later, the commercial power > grid became reliable enough to use the 60 Hz as a means to run > clocks accurately. This led to the loss of pendulum regulator > clocks and Western Union time signals Many decades ago my Uncle was a district manager for PG&E, and one of the perks was a cabin at a turn-of-the-century hydrogenerating facility that had been automated a long time ago. His cabin was the plant manager's cabin originally, and in the living room was this neat clock. It was a tall grandfather clock affair, with a temperature-compensated pendulum to keep it accurate. It had one large dial with a smaller one inset in it. The smaller one was a conventional clock face; the big dial had a single hand that read zero straight up and plus and minus seconds on either side. The mechanism had two clock drives, the pendulum one and an electric one driven by the power station generator output, and the big hand kept track of how far the frequency from the generator had drifted. I never saw it read anything other than zero, but it wasn't hard to imagine that in the manually controlled days a glance at that clock might have resulted in a phone call to the plant operator to get the fequency back on track. Marty
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 08:39:26 +1100 From: David Clayton <dcstarbox-usenet@yahoo.com.au> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: 60 hz as a time standard Message-ID: <pan.2011.10.30.21.39.21.622042@yahoo.com.au> On Sun, 30 Oct 2011 08:42:11 -0700, Martin Bose wrote: >> At some point in the 1930s or shortly later, the commercial power grid >> became reliable enough to use the 60 Hz as a means to run clocks >> accurately. This led to the loss of pendulum regulator clocks and >> Western Union time signals > > Many decades ago my Uncle was a district manager for PG&E, and one of > the perks was a cabin at a turn-of-the-century hydrogenerating facility > that had been automated a long time ago. His cabin was the plant > manager's cabin originally, and in the living room was this neat clock. > It was a tall grandfather clock affair, with a temperature-compensated > pendulum to keep it accurate. It had one large dial with a smaller one > inset in it. The smaller one was a conventional clock face; the big dial > had a single hand that read zero straight up and plus and minus seconds > on either side. > The mechanism had two clock drives, the pendulum one and an electric > one > driven by the power station generator output, and the big hand kept > track of how far the frequency from the generator had drifted. I never > saw it read anything other than zero, but it wasn't hard to imagine that > in the manually controlled days a glance at that clock might have > resulted in a phone call to the plant operator to get the fequency back > on track. > I believe they key here is "the grid". AFAIK in any power grid each supply generator connecting to it has to exactly match phase otherwise the consequences are (apparently) not good at all. It is my understanding that once connected the grid itself keeps all the AC generators in sync through the overall reflected load coming back down the line. ** Moderator note: If a generator is out-of-phase, power flows from the grid, into the generator, to speed-up (or slow down) the moving parts until the phases do match. That energy flow into the generator is ultimately dissapated as excess heat from the machinery. It can be a lot of heat, depending on how fast the hardware can adapt to the phase error. Generation facilities do run monitoring equipment to check the phase of the external plant against that of the generators; which which will then adjust the speed of the prime mover powering the generator, to ensure maximum efficiency, and minimal thermal losses. There is a story told in power-generation circless about an occasion (now more than half-a-century ago) when somebody brought a multi-megawatt generator "on line" exactly 180_degrees out-of-phase with the grid. Before the overload cutouts could act, the generator (and the unit feeding it) was a pile of smoking rubble, had torn itself loose from its mountings, and moved several feet. Amazingly, no one was killed.
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:00:18 -0700 From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: 60 hz as a time standard Message-ID: <4EADF322.8010208@thadlabs.com> On 10/30/2011 2:39 PM, David Clayton wrote: > > I believe they key here is "the grid". AFAIK in any power grid each supply > generator connecting to it has to exactly match phase otherwise the > consequences are (apparently) not good at all. > > It is my understanding that once connected the grid itself keeps all the > AC generators in sync through the overall reflected load coming back down > the line. > > ** Moderator note: > > If a generator is out-of-phase, power flows from the grid, into the > generator, to speed-up (or slow down) the moving parts until the phases > do match. That energy flow into the generator is ultimately dissapated as > excess heat from the machinery. It can be a lot of heat, depending on > how fast the hardware can adapt to the phase error. Generation facilities > do run monitoring equipment to check the phase of the external plant against > that of the generators; which which will then adjust the speed of the prime > mover powering the generator, to ensure maximum efficiency, and minimal > thermal losses. > > There is a story told in power-generation circless about an occasion > (now more than half-a-century ago) when somebody brought a multi-megawatt > generator "on line" exactly 180_degrees out-of-phase with the grid. > Before the overload cutouts could act, the generator (and the unit feeding > it) was a pile of smoking rubble, had torn itself loose from its mountings, > and moved several feet. Amazingly, no one was killed. Heh! If you want to see a 9-second video of a very high voltage switch failure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7bMM_40Z9w I've had that video on my website since 2003 and I seem to be the only person on the planet who has a description of what it is we're seeing in that video accompanying the video itself; none of the multiple copies of that video on YouTube have a description. Here are the aggregated descriptions I saved in a single file: http://thadlabs.com/VIDEOS/LugoSWR.txt The original author's page http://wiseguysynth.com/larry/day.htm doesn't have a valid link to the video anymore.
Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2011 21:42:01 -0500 From: Steve Kostecke <steve@kostecke.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: QR Codes (was A quizzical response to the new bar codes) Message-ID: <E1RKLLV-0003bu-KZ@mail.kostecke.net> On 2011-10-27, Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com> wrote: > In Message-ID: <p0624083bcacd37068d2c@[10.0.1.9]>, Bill Horne wrote: > > > ***** Moderator's Note ***** How is this different than what > > "Cue-Cat" tried to do? Does anyone remember Cue-Cat? > > Cue-cat required the user to use a special device (the Cue-Cat > scanner) connected to a computer. QR codes can be read by any smart > phone equipped with a camera and the appropriate app. An app can be > downloaded free if the phone isn't already equipped. The CueCat business model was based on selling (renting?) "CueCodes" to advertisers and providing click-track data. 'Digital:Convergence Corp.' operated servers (until January 2002) which handled the CueCode to URL linkage. QR codes allow inclusion of data (up to 4,296 alphanumeric chracters) in a machine readable format in a variety of media without paying for, or relying on, a third party service. In both cases the end result is the same from the user's point of view: scan a bar code and retrieve data. CueCode sample at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CueCat_sample_cue.png More info at http://www.cuecat.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat -- Steve Kostecke steve@kostecke.net
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