The AM Forum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e6uhkS5Gwjc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e6uhkS5Gwjc)


"Those men seem so threatening sometimes"

Good one.  Never saw this TZ episode.  TNX fer posting it.  Most of the TZ episodes were excellent.  Some of them were scary to a kid in the early 60s.  I still recall a few that scared the poop out of me back then  8).

Is this the name of the episode?  I'd like to see all of it. 

p

The "expert" TV viewer is looking out the window at UHF bowtie and yagi TV antenna and blames a ham for a case of a bad vertical hold or sporadic E. Got to love the mindless.

Its cause of the black leather jackets. Nothing ever good comes from 'em.


klc

Same effect with my neighbors, but nothing to do with antennas. The lady across the street is convinced that whenever my diesel backup generator starts, it knocks the power out on the street. She believes a lot of strange things about conspiracies, secret government plots and experiments, etc.

There are really people like that. That show is not far from the truth in suggesting how the ignorant neighbors/people react to things they do not understand.



And the black T shirts as well. Always reflects a sinister personality ;-^  does not matter: biker, ruffian, goth, fashionable teen, minister.. all who wear black are up to something and it can't be good!

" Is this the name of the episode?  I'd like to see all of it.  "





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNlcSQ-QAP0


klc

 And they have the Christmas tree on the jacket

Many years ago when most folks in our neighborhood still were using over the air TV antennas, I was accused of tearing up the Providence NBC TV outlet on channel 10, on which many people were watching the Miss America contest.  I wasn't even home at the time.  What was actually happening was  that a station down near Norfolk  came strapping in on a very strong tropo duct.  As I recall, we were seeing the same thing on the TV up at the cottage in Charlestown, RI , also close to the coast and where would see weird tropo stuff like that all the time.

There must be some tropo effects going on at UHF on short haul paths up there all the time.  After the switchover to digital format, the Hartford area stations would come in like gangbusters in the late evening, but  were totally undetectable most of the time otherwise.  The change from solid signal to  spotty signal to nothing was usually very fast.

Another war story.  Many years ago when I had a radio shop, I received a call from a customer who had recently replaced their tower on a nearby mountain.  The old tower had been there for about 20 years or so.  Right after the new  tower (a 150ft Rohn 80 I seem to recall) was erected he got a call from an irate woman who claimed the tower had wiped out TV reception in her neighborhood.  She claimed all her neighbors were up in arms over this terrible object now in view (it was moved a little more on top of the summit to gain some height).  Anyway my customer called me for help.   

I called her.  She was convinced the new tower had ruined her serenity and she had the backing of her neighbors to boot.  Everything was OK before this monolithic monstrosity suddenly appeared.  I could not seem to convince her that the tower was unlikely to have caused the TV noise she and the neighbors were experiencing.  The fact that the tower did not have any electrical power as yet did not seem to affect her argument.  I finally offered to visit her home and some neighbors to see what I could do.  The witch gave me a cold reception on arrival.  I did see some considerable noise on some of her TV channels (off air, before cable).  I then went to visit her neighbor, a nursing home. The owner was much nicer!  He expressed sympathy for my ordeal with HER next door.  I noticed the noise was worse on his TV.   After a brief search I found the culprit...an intercom in the nursing home.  Wiped out every TV within about a half mile. 

You can't reason with folks who are ruled by conspiro-idiocy....I don't even make my own lights dim (I run 240V)!

Kid next door make their lights dim?? I wish I was running that kinda strap!

My wife has one-of-those-stupid-touch-switches that control the lamp in her chiner closet. When I'm modulating the light inside flickers and STAYS ON! !

 I really strap.

In the old QTH, her treadmill was effected when I loaded up my end fed 40m. Lots of fun making it speed up. This, while it made me happy, did not end too well.

There are several anecdotal stories of the un attached antenna causing mayhem with the neighborhood.


klc

A number of years ago I wiped out the TV reception of an entire apartment complex that was about half mile away. That was fun. Turned out to be something wrong with the complex's TV antenna signal distribution system. Then there was the time that I could reboot my neighbors computer remotely. It was about that time that I had to flush the fuel tank on my diesel Blazer due to some foreign matter plugging it up. Hmmm
Larry

The name of the TZ episode is "Black Leather Jackets".  If you do a search you can find the episode in its entirety on You Tube.

I once was working a station over in France on 40 CW with my Yaesu FT-100D at the 100 watt level from  my Volvo XC one night while I waiting for a light to change here in town.  I noticed that an upstairs room light in the house across the intersection was flashing on  and off.  Thinking that maybe someone was possibly hurt, and was trying to flash a warning for help, I went up to the house and rang the doorbell, explained what I saw, and asked if there was possibly anyone upstairs.  The woman who answered the door said no, but added that their cat would sometimes turn a lamp with a touch switch on and off.  I went back out to the car and sent a few dits, and sure enough, my CW was the cause of the flickering.  I apologized to the homeowner, and explained what was happening.  She said she had noticed the lamp had done that before on it s own and wondered what was going on.   It might have been my mobile, or perhaps  a passing CBer or police car radio.  I did a test while driving away and noted that it could be tripped from several hundred feet away with the 100 watt CW  signal on 40 meters..