cfl observation

[micky]

I'm glad Chris gave the old occupants their things. Seems right to me.

LOL. ABout a month after I moved out of my Brooklyn apt. I went back looking for a painting. The tenants before me were college age art students, and I hung up all 2 or 3 things they left behind, but this was definitely the best one of the bunch. The new tenants assured me they didn't have it. The mover had assured me he didn't have it. I found it

5 years later in a big suitcase, where I had put it to protect it. But when I unpacked, I was sure the suitcase was too small to hold the painting. If I did that now, I"d attribute it to my age, but I was only 36 then.

[micky]

I'm actually still using a 6 or 8 foot piece of plain wire lying on the floor of my bedroom for a tv antenna. My digital DVDR with tuner and harddrive is connected to a big antenna with amplifier in the attic, It really annoys me when they try to sell digital tv antennas as if they are any different from "non-digital".

OTOH, the VCR with Set-Top box** is just connected to that wire in my second-floor bedroom, and it gets more stations than the DVDR, including a couple stations in DC (I live in Baltimore). When I try using that plain wire on the DVDR, it works even worse than the attic antenna, meaning the tuner in the set-top box is better than the one in the DVDR.

**One of the best for sale $80 minus 40 for the coupon they had when they went digital, but get this, it's brand is one of the cable companies. I don't know why they would even make set-top boxes. (It also has for the money, timed reception on any channel one chooses, so one can connect it to a VCR with timed recording. )

[Ed Pawlowski]

Considering how LED has come along, I'd consider it as the replacement. Still expensive,but it if lasts a long time it is worth it not having to change bulbs in tough places.

I see one in my neighborhood. I like the brightness and quality of the light. I see it on my way to work in the morning and it is too cold and too early for me to stop and check out details.

[philoÂÂ]

When I was at work, the only way I could find stuff I lost on my desk was to accuse a co-worker of stealing it.

[=]

I'd love to find plans so I could make a 75 ohm, indoor, non-directional, high-gain TV antenna (VHF and UHF) -- maybe even with an amplifier. The ones that I've found on line are either 300 ohm or too directional for my location. The old rabbit ears atenna sitting high on a shelf in my living room does work, but the signal level drops in the summer when the leaves come out and trap the signal.

Tomsic

[TimR]

You want something for nothing. Gain COMES from directionality. Sorry, there's no way around it. If you want nondirectional you'll have to add the gain with an amplifier. And you'll amplify the noise with the signal.

You can get some degree of frequency independence, like with a Discone or log periodic, but not direction independence.

[micky]

I have signal trouble, it seems, when it's raining and maybe some other things, but what I don't undestand is, why, for every signal that was pointed my way and got redirected by something, there isn't another signal that was pointed to a place nearby and got redirected towards me.

Do signals get absorbed by the rain?

[micky]

I'll look into that. Also your ideas, =, Thanks.

[makolber]

Digial Tv in the US is sensitive to multipath which showed up as ghosts on analog TV. Even if you have a strong signal, if there are too many relfect ions, the digital system won't work. Mark

[Moe DeLoughan]

Cree LEDs are considered the highest-quality bulbs on the market. Made in the USA, too. For the home lighting market, they produce 40, 60, and 75-watt equivalent bulbs designed to resemble incandescents. Home Depot currently has the 60-watt equivalent Cree bulb on sale:

$7.97 Was $12.97 Save 39% Cree 60W Equivalent Soft White (2700K) A19 Dimmable LED Light Bulb

The 75w equivalent is their latest entry, and the most expensive. Apparently, the 75w equivalent threshold has been a challenge for LED bulb production in terms of cost/heat/lumen output. Cree claims they made a breakthrough, but since their bulb is first on the market, they're priced at about $25.00 each.

[=]

The 75 and 100 watt equivalent screw-in LED bulbs have been a challenge to the LED manufacturers and it is the heat problem that frustrates the designers. Cree just announed a 75 watt equivalent; but GE announced a 100 watt equivalent earlier in the year and I think at least one other company did too. The GE LED bulb gets rid of heat with electronic "lungs". I haven't seen the Cree bulb so I'm wondering what kind of clever engineering they've done.

Tomsic

[krw]

Yeah, I have several ceiling fans with light fixtures intended to have unfrosted incandescent bulbs. Pig tails look really dumb in the fixtures. I bought a case of a hundred to round out my already fairly good stock of them.

Mine are in the normal fixtures but our parents taught us to turn lights off that aren't in use. Our electrical usage from lights is more than trivial.

[Scott Lurndal]

Hm. In stage lighting, we used tungsten-halogen lamps exclusively (well, except for some 50's-era incan scoops, and an old Strong Trouper carbon arc follow). Dimming is de rigour.

[gregz]

I don't agree. Might have some kind of narrow voltage range where something may matter. I dim them all the time. I understand th principal, but dimming also tends to extend life of all bulb types. I dim the over stove light, and the kitchen pot lights, and my dinning set, all the time.

Greg

[Tomsic]

There are no particular problems associated with the dimming of halogen bulbs. In fact, the ones that I've used in living room and bedroom track lighting over the past 10 years have been dimming just fine with only 1-2 failures in that time out of 17 fixtures which are on every evening.

Tomsic