It would have been surprising if the US would have implemented treaties differently from every other country.
Why?
It does a LOT of things differently from other countries. It redefined "republic", just for starters.
Well, this nicely wraps-up my 16 years of involvement with
See you on SoylentNews.
an apartment where she does share the building with up to 15 other families.
That doesn't preclude installing an antenna, it just reduces your options. Multi-floor apartment balconies and/or windows usually get pretty good TV reception. If previous occupants had DBS dishes mounted, you can stick an antenna on that J-channel. And landlords are usually reasonable. You can always ask for permission to install an antenna, explaining the non-destructive mounting option (chimney straps, non-penetrating root mount, etc.) you'd like to use, and promise it'll be less unsightly than what you'll do if they refuse.
I've been deistic for decades. It discounts the idea that god is an old man on the mountain, but maintains the idea that there is purpose and meaning to everything, not just man.
It could be technically the landlord's roof, not mmell's.
As long as mmell doesn't share the roof with other tennants, he has the right to mount an antenna up there.
Law of the land since 1996:
Speaking of technical, it was only recently you can easily find actual frequencies used by TV stations (needed if you are using UHF wireless mics). After the DTV transition, I could not find actual frequencies used which drove me nuts because those that say it is same as NTSC are wrong
Umm, tvfool.com has had that info forever.
I linked to the FCC's DTV transition plan in my journal about OTA TV in 2007:
http://slashdot.org/journal/18...
Specifically:
"FCC DTV tentative frequency assigments"
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs...
If you're talking about the center frequency, that's a very simple conversion. The Linux DVB package contains two text files listing center frequencies:
us-NTSC-center-frequencies-8VSB
us-ATSC-center-frequencies-8VSB
ATSC eg.:
A 57028615 8VSB
A 63028615 8VSB
A 69028615 8VSB
A 79028615 8VSB
A 85028615 8VSB
Sadly, even if we move to picocells, the antennas will still need to be "visible" and will still have some "size" to them due to the frequencies they need to handle.
Actually, wavelength at 800Mhz is only about 1ft (~30cm), so that's practical to hide. Hell, you could disguise it as a chimney or some other roof penetration.
My plan would be to mount them on telephone poles wherever available. There, they could just use business-class cable/DSL/FIOS service as the backhaul. Maybe that possibility would encourage Verizon to expand their FIOS deployment, since the big money is in cellular. AT&T's U-Verse fiber network could support it, too. Sprint/T-Mobile would be at a disadvantage, but maybe deals with local cable companies would help both sides compete. After all, where you need several picocells is right where there are already large populations, and already have wired options installed.
With that plan, cellular data could actually be both faster and cheaper than wired internet access.
I certainly don't need the mod points, but it's damn sad to see the ass-backwards moderation on this story.
This factually incorrect nonsense is +5:
* http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
While my correction actually got modded down:
* http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Similarly with this thread, I'm clearly the only one who has provided information specific to the situation, and my comments get ignored, while generalized rants with terrible info are +5.
It's a crushing disappointment to see just what
dial-up and ISDN have always referred to specific technology. Broadband has meant "not dial-up" and "fast".
Broadband has "always referred to specific technology" too.
The gas bag itself was flammable; it wouldn't have mattered what gas was in it, when it disintegrated
In particular: The paint. It contained a mix of powdered aluminum and iron oxide pigments, in sufficient concentration to maintain a redox reaction.
You and I know this mixture as "thermite". It's really hard to get the reaction started - but an electric discharge can do it. (They tried to tether it with an electrical storm approaching. That would make one hell of a spark when the charged envelope comes near to connecting to the grounded mast - which is about when the fire started.) Once it's started, the reaction is essentially impossible to extinguish. The aluminum steals the oxygen from the iron oxide. The heats of formation of the two oxides differ so much that the energy released leaves the resulting elemental iron as an orange-glowing liquid and the aluminum oxide incandescent white-hot.
You are bound by the treaties your country signed.
Yes: You, and the states, and their courts, are bound by them (to the extent they are clear or were implemented by federal enabling legislation).
In fact, they have more legal weight in the US than laws passed by your own Congress.
NO! They have EXACTLY the same weight as federal law. Both treaties and federal law are trumped by the Constitution, and both are also creatures of Congress, They can be modulated, and destroyed (at least in how they are effective within the country) by congressional action.
The idea that they're any stronger or more permanent than federal legislation comes from a (very common) misreading of the Supremacy Clause:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.
This says that the Constitution, Federal Law, and Treaties trump state law in state and federal courts. It says nothing about the relative power among the three.
The misreading is to interpret "all treaties made
In fact the Supreme Court has spoken on the relation between the Constitution and treaties: In Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957), the Supreme Court held stated that the U.S. Constitution supersedes international treaties ratified by the U.S. Senate.
Treaties are abrogated, at the federal level, all the time, and there are a number of mechanisms for doing so.
As you point out, not all birds of a feather stick together. I'm not a Tea Party guy. I'm just not closed minded enough to judge a friend by their politics. If you only have friends that agree with your politics, you are probably narrow minded or take politics too seriously.
VHF frequencies tended to flow around obstructions. UHF frequencies tended to be more "line of sight".
Lower frequencies cast a much longer shadow behind obstacles, where higher frequencies will fill-in the area more immediately behind the obstacle. People might be most familiar with AM radio fading out when driving under a bridge, while FM radio does not.
The flip side of that, which you're talking about, is that lower frequencies will lose less of their power over long distances, diffracting around the curvature of the earth, than higher frequencies.
However, that's largely compensated for by UHF broadcast and consumer receive antennas having much higher "gain" than VHF, as well as the FCC accounting for the difference and allowing UHF broadcasters to crank-up their broadcast power accordingly.
In theory, it's possible to receive VHF stations further away. In practice, you'll have a hell of a time picking up either VHF or UHF more than 50 miles away, and it gets pretty expensive after that (unless you're blessed with ideal terrain).
In my case, with some effort, I can pickup both VHF and UHF stations from 130 miles away, and the UHF stations happen to be stronger than the VHF stations.
So two stations that were previously using 6 MHz bandwidth each, will now share one channel, presumably using 3 MHz each.... and so each will have a 50% drop in picture quality. How is this a good thing for the consumer?
Answer: Because NOTHING you've said has a shred of truth. You might try looking-up KCET and KLCS before ignorantly spouting off next time...
KLCS has been operating on a waiver... They've never been broadcasting any HD channels, but just 4 SD channels. KCET has one HD 720p channel, and 3 SD subs. The two can pretty easily fit in the 19Mbps bandwidth of a single 6MHz carrier, without degrading quality at all. In addition, both could stand to drop some of those sub-channels...
KCET's NHK channel largely duplicates KSCI's carriage of several hours of NHK programming per day, as well as both KCET and KLCS carrying a half hour segments of NHK on their main channels, several times a day. Incidentally, KSCI has been operating with 9-10 SD subchannels in their single 6MHz channel for years, now.
Answer #2: PBS in the greater Los Angeles area is a complete fucking mess.
Before KCET dropped their PBS affiliation (an idiotic move, but that's another topic), they were just one of 5 PBS stations available in the greater LA area: KCET, KLCS, KOCE, KVCR, KPBS (and likely others). Now they're down to a mere 4, which is still frankly 2 or 3 too many. All of which are broadcasting almost the same content as each other, often at or near each others' time-slots. Each covers their own smaller footprint, with their own smaller niche, getting a fraction of the public donations during their pledge drives. Whereas one single PBS broadcaster in could cover a larger area, get a bigger chunk of viewers, get a bigger chunk of the donations, and improve their programming, accordingly.
KCET should just up and die, already. They dropped their PBS affiliation in a dispute over money, complaining they were paying out half their income to get PBS programming. Since then, their income has dropped by far more than half, because they no longer have any content most anyone wants to watch. They're only delaying the inevitable by selling off their assets; first their large and empty TV studio, and now their transmitter.
It's kind-of a good move for KLCS OTA TV viewers in SoCal, because KCET had invested in building several digital repeaters, to provide a very strong signal in areas where it is difficult or expensive to get Los Angeles area broadcasts. A sadly worthless move once they dropped their PBS affiliation and nobody watched their channel anymore, but getting KLCS on there would deliver PBS content again, and get some use out of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The FCC's "repacking" is a dammed cluster-fuck, screwing over OTA viewers (whose numbers are currently RISING after the digital transition made OTA far more viable). By reducing viewing options, and/or pushing broadcasters into less viable channels (eg. VHF-lo) where their broadcast footprint will be reduced, they're starting to destroy the system they've slowly and painfully built-up over the past 75 years. This just for the benefit of cell-phone companies, who would rather throw more money at buying-up the public's available spectrum (at very cheap, fire-sale prices), rather than investing in picocell sites with smaller horizons and much higher frequency reuse. But the one small advantage it offers is the chance for sick and failing TV broadcasters to cash-out in a cash-positive way.
And we're full circle.
That's what happens when you use circular logic...
For the term broadband to retain its meaning of "fast Internet", it needs to refer to speeds that can be considered fairly snappy in today's reality,
I agree. Let's do that just after we upgrade "dial-up" and "ISDN" to high speeds.
Like "broadband", they meant "high speed" once upon a time. As you're saying, since it meant something once, we must force it to continue to mean the same thing, forever.
And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. -- David Jones
