Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

Generali

zagubov wrote: »

Can you or anybody else explain why as a student my cheap soviet-made radio seemed to mainly tune in or receive eastern bloc radio stations. Its dial was marked with Praha, Moskva, and a few neutral stations like Wien, when most radios had Schenectady, Hilversum, etc.

But, weirdly, you could mainly pick up the World Service of Warsaw Pact countries. We even got Radio Havana from Cuba (I later heard they had Czech transmitters that were the most powerful in the world at the time to overcome US jamming efforts).

It was all as dull as dishwater but the most peculiar thing was Radio Tirana from the then-very-mysterious country of Albania. In those days their government regarded everybody in the world as being at least as right-wing as Hitler, including the Soviet Union and every other communist country in Europe. Judging by their broadcasts they utterly loathed everybody ( although they were very polite about it!). I later heard a story (which mught be an urban legend) that in Albania the TV sets were pre-tuned to Albanian TV to stop people tuning in to foreign stations. Did they have the ability to make radios tune in preferentially to Eastern bloc stations?

Assuming it was a normal old-style radio with a wheel for tuning I don't see how it would be possible. The knob you turn is probably a variable capacitor and I can't think of any way that you could make it tune only to specific frequencies with any reliability.

What you could do is cluster a set of radio stations around a set of frequencies and cut off some of the rest of the band around that.

zagubov

Generali wrote: »

Assuming it was a normal old-style radio with a wheel for tuning I don't see how it would be possible. The knob you turn is probably a variable capacitor and I can't think of any way that you could make it tune only to specific frequencies with any reliability.

What you could do is cluster a set of radio stations around a set of frequencies and cut off some of the rest of the band around that.

I'm stumped myself as how it could be managed. Of course there could have justy been more targeted English-language stations from those countries at hat time of night so they stood out among more music channerls and foreign language ones. I imagined it might be like a weak version of the cocktasil party effect.

On the other hand I was aware that the Eastern Bloc countries had TV but were trying to stop thier people tuning into outside stationsso I was wondering if I might be missing something .

Generali

zagubov wrote: »

I'm stumped myself as how it could be managed. Of course there could have justy been more targeted English-language stations from those countries at hat time of night so they stood out among more music channerls and foreign language ones. I imagined it might be like a weak version of the cocktasil party effect.

On the other hand I was aware that the Eastern Bloc countries had TV but were trying to stop thier people tuning into outside stationsso I was wondering if I might be missing something .

I remember visiting Yugoslavia in the mid-80s and everyone watched Italian TV. People seemed pretty relaxed about it. They weren't part of the Warsaw Pact which might have had something to do with it.

From my recollection of listening to SW & MW radio (both AM rather than FM signals) at night the waves behave differently to in the day. I can't remember why but I think it has something to do with the ionosphere.

A few years ago I was driving in the South of France and I got Capital Gold for a few minutes. That was strange.

JonnyBravo

Generali wrote: »

From my recollection of listening to SW & MW radio (both AM rather than FM signals) at night the waves behave differently to in the day. I can't remember why but I think it has something to do with the ionosphere.

You can indeed pick up weaker signals at night. ie stations further away.
It's due to the reduction in interference from the sun's radiation.

misskool

I have 4 kilos of green tomatoes. This year, they will either ripen on the windowsill or just go in the bin. still have kilos and kilos of green tomatoes in the freezer.

Blasted blight.

PasturesNew

Generali wrote: »

From my recollection of listening to SW & MW radio (both AM rather than FM signals) at night the waves behave differently to in the day. I can't remember why but I think it has something to do with the ionosphere.

Radio signals bounce off the ionosphere. The ability for radio waves to reach further/clearer is related to the sun/sun spots/radiation/interference etc. Radio hams look at these things to work out when they might be able to speak to somebody on the other side of the world, for example.

A radio wave transmits on a frequency (think of this as a length of string) and it goes up, then bounces around the ionosphere proportional to the length (of the string). There are also incidences of 'harmonics' where radio wave transmissions can be heard like echoes based again on the length of the original piece of string.

It's too early to be more technical than that.... and I figured the non-radio-heads might appreciate it being written simply

I used to operate radios when it was illegal - and was good at making my own aerials/groundplanes that got some of the best/longest local transmissions at the time. Give me a length of wire and a SWR meter and I could make 4 watts on the illegal AM radio go 30 miles on a good night to some random bloke sitting in his car in the fens.

PasturesNew

Generali wrote: »

A few years ago I was driving in the South of France and I got Capital Gold for a few minutes. That was strange.

Could have been harmonics, see above.

Davesnave

misskool wrote: »

Blasted blight.

I've given up growing toms outside. This year, we have 5 plants in the poly (after scrapping the early ones to make more room for peppers) and we're just about keeping up. Mind you, that includes a bit of a reduction last weekend when a friend had a 'family day'..... for 42!!! :eek:

The poly I have ATM is only about 2.2 metres at its tallest point, so I'm growing the toms up and then sideways, like vines, and they seem to be OK with that.

misskool

well, it's not a good start to the day when you can't find your wedding and engagement rings is it?

JonnyBravo

misskool wrote: »

Blasted blight.

I'm a bit baffled by blight.
EVERY year I get leaves which look like this



It starts on the leaves lower down on the plant and slowly works its way up to the newer leaves. The fruit never get any of it. Like this.



Each year as the first few leaves start to "turn" is when I start to up the feeding. It seems (to my mind?) to slow its spread down and I don't bother cutting any of the affected branches off until they really are virtually dead.
Is my feeding protecting the fruit? Have I got a mild version?
All this is in a greenhouse.

As an aside, my toms are slower ripening this year. Normally I'd be in a glut by now but this year we're still getting just the right amount. Presumably due to the reduction in sun compared to recent years.
So many green that as soon as we do get some sun we're in for a ton!