Daft TV system discovered on Monday
 

I'm going round doing grassroots stuff this week (until tomorrow), and do
you know, I'm loving it!

There were two blocks of flats about 15m apart, one on each side of the car
park. Built two years ago. Typical cowboy builders; flat roofs (unusual
these days) which had actually been so badly damaged in the wind that the
council had come along and done a temporary repair because bits were falling
in the shopping arcade, then found there was no-one to pick up the bill.
Anyway, each block had only three flats, one per floor, actually quite large
ones, rather nice. I noticed that there was a dish and aerial on the front
block but nowt on the back block. No loft, so nothing hidden in there. Hmm.
.. . The dish and aerial were on the wall of the front block. The dish was a
cheap 60cm, the TV aerial was a log periodic that was only 6" above the flat
roof, despite being on top of a 12ft mast, and of course there was the
obligatory FM halo. The complaint was from one flat in the back block. Poor
reception of DTT, especially BBC1 etc. The UHF signal levels were very low
indeed, and were lowest at the top of the band. This was on Emley BTW, but
actually outside the normal Emley service area. Waltham had a hill in the
way.

The living room outlet was a triplexed type but without a return to the
bedroom. Satellite signals were poor at the bottom of the band, and simply
disappeared into the analyser's noise floor about half way up.

The young man was extremely uncouth, but in a homely sort of way, and I
warmed to him when he told me that his mother had thrown him out of the
family home for a series of offences that had climaxed in his dismantling
his motorbike in the living room when she was at Butlin's. He had been
unable to remove the oil stains from the carpet so had removed and burnt the
carpet, hoping that she wouldn't notice. He told me that reception in the
bedroom was quite poor, especially BBC2. The bedroom TV was an analogue
portable. The outlet plate was a standard one-port Belling. Hmm . . .

I started to suspect that the downleads to the flats in the back block came
all the way from the front block. Given the small number of flats and the
relatively short distance, that would be fair enough if the signal levels
from the head end were set to allow for the cable losses, and if the cable
was protected in some way from the effects of being buried. There was no
landlord's electric supply in the back block, yet there were lights in the
stairway. So if the leccy comes from the other block via an underground
cable, I bet the TV does (I thunk).

Yes it did! I found the 'head-end ' in the front block. It comprised nowt
but a 12 way multiswitch, wedged sideways into a leccy meter box, set in the
wall behind the dustbins and with no door! Bloody thing was out in the
weather except for an overhang above it of about a foot. Been like that from
Day One apparently. Seems that the dustbin area doubles as an emergency
****ior and vomitarium for the patrons of the pub next door. Quite smelly,
and sticky underfoot. OK, well if there's twelve coaxes leaving the
multiswitch and there's six flats, that sounds like two feeds per flat. One
to the living room, and one (with a one-port Belling outlet) to the bedroom.

I checked the switch outputs. They were OK! UHF was a bit crap, but not bad
at all really. Satellite was OK, but BER was slightly worse than normal.
Cheap 60cm dish. . .

Went back to the flat, looked again at the analyser screen. Classic cable
loss symptoms. Back at the head end, took an 'f' plug off a downlead. The
cable was the usual cheapo 'silver paper foil' pseudo satellite ****e.

Then I noticed that six of the cables went down from the box, and six went
up.

Two years ago in County Cork I came across a remote building, miles from
anywhere, at the side of what passes for a main road road in those parts.
It had been a garage but had stood derelect for a long time. I stopped and
looked. There was an aerosol-written sign. 'Army Surplus'. I went in. There
was a fat lad and his dad. The place was full of NATO gear. It was
brilliant. I bought two fold-up spades. Trenching tools, **** for the
burying of. Tremendous bargain at 3 euros each.

So I started to excavate in the dustbin area, just below the head-end. First
I removed the surface layer of ****, ****, and puke (I think there might
also have been sperm). Then I removed an inch of earth. Then I found six
coaxes, with no conduit or other protection, running an inch under the
surface. I re-interred the cables, and went to the uncouth one to give the
bad news.

Tomorrow I will write to the management agent. They will ignore the letter.

Bill

Daft TV system discovered on Monday
 

Sounds like the original installer had his fingers crossed when he took the
money and vanished then.

Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
I'm going round doing grassroots stuff this week (until tomorrow), and do
you know, I'm loving it!

There were two blocks of flats about 15m apart, one on each side of the
car park. Built two years ago. Typical cowboy builders; flat roofs
(unusual these days) which had actually been so badly damaged in the wind
that the council had come along and done a temporary repair because bits
were falling in the shopping arcade, then found there was no-one to pick
up the bill. Anyway, each block had only three flats, one per floor,
actually quite large ones, rather nice. I noticed that there was a dish
and aerial on the front block but nowt on the back block. No loft, so
nothing hidden in there. Hmm. . . The dish and aerial were on the wall of
the front block. The dish was a cheap 60cm, the TV aerial was a log
periodic that was only 6" above the flat roof, despite being on top of a
12ft mast, and of course there was the obligatory FM halo. The complaint
was from one flat in the back block. Poor reception of DTT, especially
BBC1 etc. The UHF signal levels were very low indeed, and were lowest at
the top of the band. This was on Emley BTW, but actually outside the
normal Emley service area. Waltham had a hill in the way.

The living room outlet was a triplexed type but without a return to the
bedroom. Satellite signals were poor at the bottom of the band, and simply
disappeared into the analyser's noise floor about half way up.

The young man was extremely uncouth, but in a homely sort of way, and I
warmed to him when he told me that his mother had thrown him out of the
family home for a series of offences that had climaxed in his dismantling
his motorbike in the living room when she was at Butlin's. He had been
unable to remove the oil stains from the carpet so had removed and burnt
the carpet, hoping that she wouldn't notice. He told me that reception in
the bedroom was quite poor, especially BBC2. The bedroom TV was an
analogue portable. The outlet plate was a standard one-port Belling. Hmm .
. .

I started to suspect that the downleads to the flats in the back block
came all the way from the front block. Given the small number of flats and
the relatively short distance, that would be fair enough if the signal
levels from the head end were set to allow for the cable losses, and if
the cable was protected in some way from the effects of being buried.
There was no landlord's electric supply in the back block, yet there were
lights in the stairway. So if the leccy comes from the other block via an
underground cable, I bet the TV does (I thunk).

Yes it did! I found the 'head-end ' in the front block. It comprised nowt
but a 12 way multiswitch, wedged sideways into a leccy meter box, set in
the wall behind the dustbins and with no door! Bloody thing was out in the
weather except for an overhang above it of about a foot. Been like that
from Day One apparently. Seems that the dustbin area doubles as an
emergency ****ior and vomitarium for the patrons of the pub next door.
Quite smelly, and sticky underfoot. OK, well if there's twelve coaxes
leaving the multiswitch and there's six flats, that sounds like two feeds
per flat. One to the living room, and one (with a one-port Belling outlet)
to the bedroom.

I checked the switch outputs. They were OK! UHF was a bit crap, but not
bad at all really. Satellite was OK, but BER was slightly worse than
normal. Cheap 60cm dish. . .

Went back to the flat, looked again at the analyser screen. Classic cable
loss symptoms. Back at the head end, took an 'f' plug off a downlead. The
cable was the usual cheapo 'silver paper foil' pseudo satellite ****e.

Then I noticed that six of the cables went down from the box, and six went
up.

Two years ago in County Cork I came across a remote building, miles from
anywhere, at the side of what passes for a main road road in those parts.
It had been a garage but had stood derelect for a long time. I stopped and
looked. There was an aerosol-written sign. 'Army Surplus'. I went in.
There was a fat lad and his dad. The place was full of NATO gear. It was
brilliant. I bought two fold-up spades. Trenching tools, **** for the
burying of. Tremendous bargain at 3 euros each.

So I started to excavate in the dustbin area, just below the head-end.
First I removed the surface layer of ****, ****, and puke (I think there
might also have been sperm). Then I removed an inch of earth. Then I found
six coaxes, with no conduit or other protection, running an inch under the
surface. I re-interred the cables, and went to the uncouth one to give the
bad news.

Tomorrow I will write to the management agent. They will ignore the
letter.

Bill

Daft TV system discovered on Monday
 

On Thu, 4 Jun 2009 02:46:08 +0100, "Bill Wright"
wrote:


vomitarium

That was new one on me, I had to look it up.

Daft TV system discovered on Monday
 

On Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:44:14 +0100, CD wrote:

On Thu, 4 Jun 2009 02:46:08 +0100, "Bill Wright"
wrote:

vomitarium

That was new one on me, I had to look it up.

The correct spelling is vomitorium.

Now what most people think it means, so I am led to believe that
William Wright has not only made a spelling mistake, but committed
a most heinous malapropism.

QUOTE

Definition of Vomitorium

+ A passage located behind a tier of seats in an ampitheatre
used as an exit for the crowds

UNQUOTE

Daft TV system discovered on Monday
 

vomitarium

That was new one on me, I had to look it up.

The correct spelling is vomitorium.

Now what most people think it means, so I am led to believe that
William Wright has not only made a spelling mistake, but committed
a most heinous malapropism.

QUOTE

Definition of Vomitorium

+ A passage located behind a tier of seats in an ampitheatre
used as an exit for the crowds

UNQUOTE

Pedant mode on

Have you got a cite for that? According to the Oxford Latin Dictionary it
means an emetic. It would seem that the term is Dog Latin rather than the
real thing.

Pedant mode off

Peter Crosland

Daft TV system discovered on Monday
 

"J G Miller" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:44:14 +0100, CD wrote:

On Thu, 4 Jun 2009 02:46:08 +0100, "Bill Wright"
wrote:

vomitarium

That was new one on me, I had to look it up.

The correct spelling is vomitorium.

Now what most people think it means, so I am led to believe that
William Wright has not only made a spelling mistake, but committed
a most heinous malapropism.

QUOTE

Definition of Vomitorium

+ A passage located behind a tier of seats in an ampitheatre
used as an exit for the crowds

Ohh, that's interesting, innit? Pity really; the commonly held belief that
it was a place where Romans puked was much more fun. I think if I were still
reaching history I'd pretend I didn't know the real definition. There's
nothing a class of ten year old like better than buckets of sick.

Is it a malapropism by the way?

Bill

Daft TV system discovered on Monday
 

"Peter Crosland" wrote in message
o.uk...
vomitarium

That was new one on me, I had to look it up.

The correct spelling is vomitorium.

Now what most people think it means, so I am led to believe that
William Wright has not only made a spelling mistake, but committed
a most heinous malapropism.

QUOTE

Definition of Vomitorium

+ A passage located behind a tier of seats in an ampitheatre
used as an exit for the crowds

UNQUOTE

Pedant mode on

Have you got a cite for that? According to the Oxford Latin Dictionary it
means an emetic. It would seem that the term is Dog Latin rather than the
real thing.

As often happens in English, I thing the meaning got through even if the
definition was wrong!

Bill

Daft TV system discovered on Monday
 

vomitarium

That was new one on me, I had to look it up.

The correct spelling is vomitorium.

Now what most people think it means, so I am led to believe that
William Wright has not only made a spelling mistake, but committed
a most heinous malapropism.

QUOTE

Definition of Vomitorium

+ A passage located behind a tier of seats in an ampitheatre
used as an exit for the crowds

UNQUOTE

Pedant mode on

Have you got a cite for that? According to the Oxford Latin Dictionary it
means an emetic. It would seem that the term is Dog Latin rather than the
real thing.

As often happens in English, I thing the meaning got through even if the
definition was wrong!


Quite! That is because English is such a *******ised language with the roots
of words borrowed from all over, but particularly from Latin. A wonderful
language even if it did drive me mad at school but enough remained in my
brain to be useful.

Peter Crosland

Daft TV system discovered on Monday
 

On Thu, 4 Jun 2009 16:50:57 +0100, "Bill Wright"
wrote:


"J G Miller" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:44:14 +0100, CD wrote:

On Thu, 4 Jun 2009 02:46:08 +0100, "Bill Wright"
wrote:

vomitarium

That was new one on me, I had to look it up.

The correct spelling is vomitorium.

Now what most people think it means, so I am led to believe that
William Wright has not only made a spelling mistake, but committed
a most heinous malapropism.

QUOTE

Definition of Vomitorium

+ A passage located behind a tier of seats in an ampitheatre
used as an exit for the crowds

Ohh, that's interesting, innit? Pity really; the commonly held belief that
it was a place where Romans puked was much more fun. I think if I were still
reaching history I'd pretend I didn't know the real definition. There's
nothing a class of ten year old like better than buckets of sick.

Is it a malapropism by the way?

From the Oxford English Dictionary:

vomitorium

[Neuter sing. of L. vomitorius (cf. next); recorded only in
pl. (Macrobius Sat. VI. iv).]

1. A passage or opening in an ancient amphitheatre or theatre,
leading to or from the seats. Usu. pl.

2. erroneous. A room in which ancient Romans are alleged to have
vomited deliberately during feasts.

vomitory, n.

[adaptation of L. vomitori-um ...]

1. A medicine or the like which causes or induces vomiting; an
emetic. Obsolete.

2. An opening, door, or passage in a theatre, playhouse, or the
like, affording ingress or egress to the spectators; originally
(and usually) = VOMITORIUM.

3. A funnel, vent, or other opening through which matter is emitted
or discharged.

Daft TV system discovered on Monday
 

J G Miller wrote:

+ A passage located behind a tier of seats in an ampitheatre
used as an exit for the crowds

Ampitheatre? Is that where they keep the headend?

--
Andy