Hi Ho, the radio!

1. As I had not (re)read Elements of Radio in some time I figured I should read it again and maybe be reminded of a few things I have forgotten. One thing I hadn't expected was that it started off even simpler than I had remembered (in my Class II books post). The first chapter is a very simple history of communication. Explanation of wave behavior doesn't come until the second chapter - and is just as simple as I remembered.

2. Last night after getting fed up with thinkgeek.com's order processing stubbornly refusing to work in anything even beginning to approach a useful manner, I took a break and planned to review a tape. But Empire of the Air was on and I watched that. I had seen it before, but forgotten much of it. It's amazing how much Edwin H. Armstrong did. What, never heard of him? He only invented the electronic oscillator and regeneration, the superheterodyne, and FM. He, like Tesla, did more than many of those remembered by most. And was less of a kook than Tesla.

3. There was a story on slashdot about antennas to increase range of wireless network connections. One device, based on a can, has been dubbed the Cantenna. This amuses me as there was once a different product also called a Cantenna. While the new one is meant to extend range and get a signal out well, the original was meant to prevent signal from being transmitted. Why do that? So that a transmitter could be adjusted without it causing interference.