Posts from — February 2009

So last night I got set up on LinkedIn, a networking site for professionals, and I am currently working on going through my contact lists and making sure that everyone knows I am available for freelance work. Hopefully some jobs will start coming in, but now is the time for me to build up my skills at self promotion. In the meantime. If anyone needs some help with any video / photo or related production, please let me know, and be sure to check out my resume as well. Feel free to take a look at my profile on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/tzken Take care everyone, and keep in touch!

Well,
It happened to me. I know, I have always thought that I’d be protected, insulated from economic woes, however yesterday was my last day with my previous company. I found out about it in the morning on my way out for what I thought was going to be two days on the road. After spending most of the day yesterday taking stock, and letting it sink in, I’ve begun to get ready to make the most of it. Applied for unemployment insurance, which will hopefully keep us afloat till I land another job, and I’m working on getting things going to get my name out there in the freelance market. So if you need a freelance truck operator, cameraman, audio, or utility, let me know. I’ll keep updating the blog as to what I am up to, and hopefully things will get better. Thanks to everyone who saw my twitter update and has already emailed with words of encouragement. I really appreciate it.

This afternoon in Athens, Greece, Two convicts escaped from a “Maximum security” Prison by helicopter. Apparently two accomplices commandeered a chartered helicopter to fly low over the courtyard of the prison and lowered a rope-ladder to the escapees. The guards apparently fired at the helicopter and a woman in the helicopter returned fire with an automatic weapon. They then were able to flee by air, and abandoned the helicopter and pilot some distance away.

Vassilis Paleokostas, 42, and Alket Rizaj, 34, were picked up by a helicopter that flew over the courtyard of Korydallos prison Sunday afternoon. The inmates climbed a ladder thrown to them by a woman passenger, the Ministry of Justice said.
Guards opened fire and the woman passenger returned fire with an automatic rifle. No injuries were reported. – Associated Press Feb 22nd 2009

Now this sounds crazy, right? Guess what… this is the second time it has happened, with the same prisoners, from the same prison, several years ago. Hasn’t someone thought that it would be a good idea to prevent these particular prisoners from being able to spend time in the yard? If this truly is a Maximum security prison, how in the world are people able to escape using exactly the same method, without some sort of measures being taken to prevent this from being possible again?

After many attempts to delay the DTV transition, President Obama signed the delay into law on Feb 11th, 2009, The transition was originally supposed to take place on February 17th, 2009. This transition had been planned for a long time, and there was a major failure to educate the public and prepare everyone for this transition to take place. So, because the public is not ready, what are we to do? Howabout we delay the transition? well, yes, and no. The transition delay has been approved, however they botched the delay, and instead of just delaying the entire transition… they did this:

Congress did not require stations to continue broadcasting in analog after February 17th, and stations may choose to complete their transition, and stop broadcasting in analog, before June 12th. – FCC Website

Talk about a way to get everyone all messed up. Fortunately it appears that the first stage of the transition went well. Many stations will be required to not just turn off there analog transmissions when they do the switch, but also switch transmission lines and frequencies of their digital transmissions at the same time, leading to several reasons for the stations to want to switch before June 12th:

1. Pre-Scheduled tower work and staffing for the transition
2. Decrease in power consumption requirements for transmission services
3. Pre-existing property agreements for those switching transmitter locations

Not to mention all of those who participated in the FCC’s spectrum auction that would like to be able to occupy their newly purchased spectrum sooner rather than later.

A total of 641 of television stations took advantage of the flexibility afforded them by law to transition to digital broadcasting as of Tuesday. Nearly two-thirds of the nation’s 1800 full-power commercial stations chose to continue broadcasting analog signals so that consumers unprepared for the transition can take advantage of the additional time afforded by the new DTV Delay Act to prepare. The law extended the deadline from Feb. 17 to June 12. – FCC Web site

This has all been added on top of the already super-confusing state of what consumers need to know about the DTV transition. Almost everyone I have talked with is in some way confused about what this transition means to them. Here is the lowdown.

• This transition ONLY effects those people who receive their Television signals over-the-air from an antenna. Either from an antenna on the roof or “rabbit ears”
• This transition will NOT affect you if you receive your television signals from the cable company, your telephone company or a satellite provider no matter what type of television you use or if you use a cable box or not.
• This transition does NOT mean you need to buy a new TV
• This transition does NOT mean you need to get cable if you didn’t have it before
• This transition does NOT mean you need to upgrade to “digital cable”
• If you have a television, and use an antenna to receive your local stations, you MUST have an ATSC tuner to continue your reception after those stations turn off the older analog transmitters.
• Most new televisions have an ATSC tuner built in.
• You can get an external ATSC tuner to use with your current television, at a relatively low cost (or for free if you were lucky enough to get a coupon).

Should be easy enough, right? Well, Its been kind of frustrating to see commercials for our local cable company saying that if you sign up with them, they will take care of the DTV transition for you… which they will, but if you don’t have cable currently, a converter box is going to be MUCH cheaper than signing up for even the most basic of cable packages. Also, I have heard several sales people at retailers trying to pitch that you MUST buy a new television in order to continue getting television, regardless of how you get it, even if you are already a cable subscriber. I find this sort of deception toward the public repulsive at best.

Ok, so some of you may know about what APRS tracking is. APRS stands for Automatic Position Reporting System, which runs using Amature radio, GPS, and a network of interconnected stations that relay position reports around the world. I have had all of the pieces nessisary to set up and connect a APRS tracking station for quite some time, but have yet to finally get it integrated and set up in an easy to use package. Sometime soon I’ll take a few pictures and detail how I put together my system for everyone to look at. In the meantime, you can now go to http://www.tz42.com/findken.html to see where my lastest position report has come from. I figured that this was the perfect time to put the system online, as we are in the midst of a trip to NH to visit with some friends for the weekend. My plan is to mount the system in the truck, so that whenever I am off on a job I can turn the system on, and you can all see where I am at. There is a nice embedded system for display that uses google maps, play around with it, you can zoom right in close, and be sure to click on the icon for my car, which will give you information about when the position report was last updated and more information (like speed and direction of travel). Let me know what you think! Oh, and I am also currently testing out Google latitude, which I will have a review for shortly, if you are using it, add me (ken at tz42 dot com) I’d like to see if anyone else is using it.