Whether or not you agreed with him or who he worked for, Tony was a great communicator. He conveyed a sincerity that many in the media and the political arena should learn and use.

Godspeed, Mr. Snow.

I have enough coax to run a new line without buying more!
W00T!

(we now return you back to your regularly scheduled, less geeky lives)

My lovely wife and boy bought me 25′ of RG-8x coax for my amateur radio station. I crawled under the house to install it, soldered the connectors on and tuned it up, only to find that it wouldn’t tune correctly and it’s receive was weak.

After 3 hours of troubleshooting, resoldering both connectors and finally stripping both connectors off I have determened there is a short in the cable itself. Bummer. Now I have to get back under the house when I get the replacement. Given my current girth and the small size of the crawlspace entrance, this will not be any more pleasant than last time.

Sigh… Field Day is next weekend. Maybe I can get on the air by then.
Have a great weekend!

In my previous career I was exposed to more hours of radio in a day than most people get in a whole week. I lived and breathed radio. In this amount of time, I have heard my share of commercials and let’s all be honest: we all hate them. Sure there are occasionally some witty and entertaining spots but for the most part they are very stereotypical and cliché.

Your average commercial is something like this:

Do you have problems with your old widget? Ever thought about getting a new widget? Well, our widget is best. Our widgets are shown to be 10% more effective than those other widgets, and imagine the money that will save you every month! So, remember to come visit us for all your widget needs.

These commercials make me crazy, but nothing makes me more drive off the side of a bridge while screaming maniacally crazy than the car commercials:

It should be noted that this entire commercial is done via cellphone.

(First guy) FOLKS WE’RE DOWN HERE ON THE LOT AND WE’VE GOT SOME HOTTTTT DEEEEAAALLLSSSSSSSS!!

(Second Guy) THAT’S RIGHT (First Guy’s name) WE’VE OVERSTOCKED AND THAT MEANS SAVINGS FOR YOU! WE’VE GOT MORE (insert car brand name here) THAN YOU’VE EVER SEEN!

(First guy) WE’VE GOT SO MANY THAT WE CAN’T SEE THEM ALL FROM HERE! THAT MEANS SAVINGS FOR YOU! ZERO PERCENT FINANCING AND NO MONEY DOWN… HECK YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO PAY FOR THE CAR JUST COME PICK ONE OUT!

Ok, you get the idea. They are screaming, getting out of hand and in general being annoying. This is especially true at 3am. First off, you are NOT “out here on the lot” at 3am, so let’s not insult my intelligence. I think you need to know that we don’t appreciate that kind of thing.

Today, I heard a more disturbing advertisement. It was just like a car lot advertisement, but it was for a furniture store. Let me tell ya, their cell phone was even worse than the car lot guys. I couldn’t understand more than half of the ad because it was horribly over modulated. Why do you need to scream about furniture? Why? Do you have market research that shows people buy more furniture when the sales people are screaming and running around like chickens with their heads cut off? I’m willing to bet that it doesn’t actually help.

So, if you have a business I beg you please… Don’t scream in your advertisements. I’m not shopping there if you do.