Friday, July 15, 2005

Still here

Yup, I'm still here. I've been busy at and after work for the last week.

My biggest headache this week has been making arrangements to have a big pile of streaming video gear sent over to Moorestown so that I can do interoperability testing with our hospitality Internet access product. I'd hoped to do the testing here in Philly, but the rack of video equipment draws about 15 amps when powered up, and our lab's AC power is maxed out.

Outside of work, something I've been looking at for awhile is getting my ham license. Although I don't know a lot about radio, it's always been somewhat interesting to me. Besides, I don't have enough expensive geeky hobbies. :-) So, today I ordered a copy of Now You're Talking from Amazon, and should get it next week. This seems to be the most popular book for ham newbies. I'm going to get my no-code Technician's Class license first, and go for a General Class if I really get into it.

As a side benefit, the RF knowledge gained from getting my ham license may be beneficial in dealing with CATV RF issues at work.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi, Dave...

Can you post a few of the details about the streaming video equipment you mention here? I'm just interested in generalities at this point.

I'm looking at possibly putting some kind of a streaming video feed in at a gold mine _way_ out in the boonies, and am just starting to look around at some of the options I have. We still have to get the Internet connection squared around - so realistically we're probably looking at next year given the speed of the telco we're dealing with - but anything you can pass along would be helpful.

I'm particularly interested in the bandwidth requirements the streams need, as bandwidth will most likely be our main stumbling block given the location of this stuff.

BTW, I have started my own blog here that talks about this gold mine and shows the location - feel free to check it out at hollowaybar.blogspot.com if you're so inclined, and you can see what I've been up to the past couple of months.

Al