Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 08:50:20 -0400 (EDT) From: Bill Paul <wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> To: rhh@ct.picker.com (Randall Hopper) Cc: nirva@ishiboo.com, hasty@rah.star-gate.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: X-10 Mouse Remote patch Message-ID: <199806181250.IAA26015@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> In-Reply-To: <19980618062844.E3160@ct.picker.com> from "Randall Hopper" at Jun 18, 98 06:28:44 am
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Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, Randall Hopper had to walk into mine and say: > Danny Dulai: > |Randall, your moused patches will send the non mouse related data to the > |/var/run/MouseRemote socket, [chop] Just one quick comment here... > |Also, I've noticed something weird.. just randomly, since I've been > |running moused on the remote, my mouse cursor will jump around. Might I > |be getting RF interference? I live right off of Broadway in downtown > |NYC.. there is all kinds of things going on outside, and sometimes my > |speakers will just start picking up people's conversations on what seems > |to be radio tranmissions. Let me guess: you live not too far from the ground floor, like maybe 4 or 5 flights up in an apartment building, yes? Living in Manhattan for most of my life, I've also encountered occasional RF interference. It's the taxi drivers (sometimes gypsy drivers, sometimes medallion cabs; it varies). Many taxi drivers in NYC have illegal CB radio systems in their cabs. By illegal, I mean CB radios that have been modified to tune outside the normal CB frequency allocation and used together with RC amplifiers. FCC rules dictate that CB radio transmitters are only allowed 4 watts output power using AM and 12 using SSB, but it's not uncommon to find amplifiers that boost the output to 100, 200 or 500 watts or more. (These amplifiers are often cheaply built, badly shielded, and have less than adequate output filtering. A lot of the time they're little more than a big heat-sink with transistors attached.) Typically I think they have these things so they can talk with each other while on the job. Driving around alone late at night in NYC, I can understand wanting to chat with someone to pass the time. However, with all the buildings and the sheer size of New York City, an ordinary CB radio really doesn't reach very far. Cab companies that use a commercial radio systems get around this by putting up a repeater (which can pick up distant signals and retransmit them) but typically that requires more expensive mobile units; CB radios are relatively cheap, and amplifiers can be found if you know where to look. In any case, these illegally amplified transmissions have a habit of bleeding into other electronic devices, most notably cable TV distribution blocks. Sometimes a cab will pass over a distribution block under the street and start transmitting; this can lead to much confusion since the distributiob block may be several blocks away from you, yet you still see/hear interference on your set. Other common victims are cheap telephones and AM/FM radio receivers. In general, if you live high enough off the ground, you tend to experience less of this. -Bill -- ============================================================================= -Bill Paul (212) 854-6020 | System Manager, Master of Unix-Fu Work: wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu | Center for Telecommunications Research Home: wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu | Columbia University, New York City ============================================================================= "It is not I who am crazy; it is I who am mad!" - Ren Hoek, "Space Madness" ============================================================================= To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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