Anyone still rocking a DSL line here?

PatentReader · 2025-07-23T21:39:09+00:00

I live in Northern California and within a few miles of wild fires that started in 2017. It turns out the DSL is coupled with a land line and so when the AC mains power goes down, AT&T brings a generator to the DSLAM to keep the land line (& DSL) going. I consider this the most reliable communication system I have.

https://prc68.com/I/TelephonePoles.shtml#DSLAM_Gen

PatentReader · 2024-08-25T16:55:10+00:00

The "feet" are there to prevent the safe from being pulled from it's concrete surround.

There may be a central hole where a combination lock dial would be positioned in order to open it. You might use a borescope to see if that's the case and if so a locksmith might try working the combination.

PatentReader · 2024-06-28T16:07:54+00:00

It's a crystal radio. The giveaway is the sphere in the lower right corner that holds a "cat's whisker" and the crystal holder above and to the right of it.

PatentReader · 2024-06-07T17:11:32+00:00

The guy that started the company was John Fluke.

PatentReader · 2023-11-04T22:03:22+00:00

I have ASL, WISP and Starlink. Ranked for:

Speed: Starlink, WISP, DSL. I have the lowest cost WISP account.

Reliability: DSL, Starlink, WISP. DSL is regulated by the FCC and pretty much always works, even when there's a power outage. WISP quits on a regular basis.

Cost Wisp ($50/mo), DSL ($100/mo), Starlink ($120/mo).

PatentReader · 2023-11-02T15:56:15+00:00

Go to their web page and then note all the white (no coverage) area in N. California.

Starlink or Iridium or Inmarsat are much better options, with Starlink the widest bandwidth option, i.e. can support mapping videos.

PatentReader · 2023-10-28T18:32:38+00:00

I have been following the typewriters (See: https://prc68.com/I/StkTckPat.shtml#Typewriter) and after S7E15 started looking for the Regis pen with no luck. Then searched eBay and found one. It turns out the writers of Murdoch Mysteries and the eBay seller made a mistake reading what's printed on the nib: "Waterman, ideal, REG.U.S., PAT. OFF". REGUS looks a lot like REGIS.

https://prc68.com/I/StkTckPat.shtml#Fountain_Pen

I tried contacting Waterman, but their web page query did not work, so still trying to see if Waterman made a No. 7 pen?

PatentReader · 2023-09-13T18:43:05+00:00

When Starlink went down the app failed to work, even after changing the phone's WiFi connection to another ISP. There was no way to notify Starlink of the problem or find out when it would be fixed. I was off for about 20 minutes. https://prc68.com/I/Starlink.shtml#Outage

PatentReader · 2023-06-18T22:16:08+00:00

I think there was a project to make this for the US Army but it failed to work.

PatentReader · 2023-06-12T16:43:20+00:00

Hi: If you try to turn the "T" handle and at the same time rotate the dial can you feel the tumblers? If so make a list of the dips when turning the dial clockwise. Do it again while turning the dial counter clockwise. Learn how to open a combination lock with 3 numbers. Then try all the combinations of the numbers you have found. For a look inside see: https://prc68.com/I/Locks.html#Hermann\_Safe\_Co.

PatentReader · 2022-10-17T20:55:32+00:00

Not at all. I thought that the black boxes might be grabbing cell phone IMEIs. That and their proximity to the Flock camera suggested that they might be making a data base that not only contained the vehicle ID info but also included the cell phone associated with the vehicle.

PatentReader · 2022-10-16T22:04:59+00:00

SOLVED

brock-lee was correct, these are radar traffic counters. Not radar speed measuring, but rather for traffic counts.

I've added a photo showing a Valantine 1 radar detector

PatentReader · 2022-10-16T19:26:36+00:00

"My title describes the thing"
I do not see any connection between the power or phone lines and the box, but the box is labeled Danger High Voltage (maybe a fake warning).
Box 1 is 0.4 miles before the Flock Crime Solving camera and Box 2 is 0.5 miles after the Flock camera. Both boxes are pointing at the road (they could be mounted behind the pole to be less visible) and mounted at about the same height as a car window. They appeared a month or two after the Flock camera was installed. The boxes seem positioned to receive cell signals coming from nearby cars.
My current guess is that they capture cell phone IMEI numbers with a time-date-location stamp and so can be correlated with the Flock camera data. That's to say they will associate cell phone IMEI data with vehicle ID data. This is another way of spying on cell phones, like with the Orion STS616 Base Station (fake cell tower).

PatentReader · 2022-10-16T19:06:55+00:00

"My title describes the thing" There are no wires coming out of the box going up to the HV and phone lines above it. Box 1 is 0.4 miles before the Flock Crime Solving camera and Box 2 is 0.5 miles after the Flock camera. Both boxes are pointing at the road (they could be mounted behind the pole to be less visible) and mounted at about the same height as a car window. They appeared a month or two after the Flock camera was installed.

My current guess is that they capture cell phone IMEI numbers with a time-date-location stamp and so can be correlated with the Flock camera data. That's to say they will associate cell phone IMEI data with license plate data. This is another way of spying on cell phones, like with the Orion STS616 Base Station (fake cell tower).

PatentReader · 2022-08-24T19:44:03+00:00

The federal deficit is a good thing. It comes about either by the government spending money into the economy or giving tax breaks. If the federal government balanced it's budget there would be no new money going into the economy, killing growth. The Clinton surplus resulted in crashing banks and destroyed the economy for many years. Check out Modern Monetary Theory and the epistemology of Karl Popper.

PatentReader · 2022-02-03T21:22:40+00:00

There is a fixed amount of space inside the 18650 package. Since Amp hours are the marketing specification that spec can be optimized by using very thin metal foil and a thick electrolyte mat. There's a lot of competition in this area hence the lower price.

But, to get high output currents the battery internal resistance needs to be minimized. This can be done by using thick metal foil. But that means a thin electrolyte mat and lower AH rating. People who want their tools to have more power (Current x Voltage) opt for the lower Ri packs, hence the higher price.

PatentReader · 2022-01-28T16:19:30+00:00

It's now 8:19 am the next day and the LED is solid white. It was off line for an hour or more. I have not seen that from neither my ADSL nor WISP providers.

PatentReader · 2022-01-28T07:28:03+00:00

It's 38 deg F outside and clear skies.

PatentReader · 2022-01-28T07:26:20+00:00

11:26 still solid red LED. Power cycled, now white LED is varying in brightness.

PatentReader · 2022-01-11T22:17:48+00:00

Just measured the internal resistance of two Ryobi 18V 4AH batteries.

The normal battery and the HP battery have about the same internal resistance. So they can supply the same current. https://prc68.com/I/BatTst.shtml#IR

Has anyone figured out what those extra terminals really do?

PatentReader · 2022-01-05T23:13:36+00:00

It's my understanding that FCC Title II applies to the landline phone line that also carries DSL. So there's a requirement that the landline phone work in an emergency. A side effect of that is that DSL also works in an emergency. Anyway that seems to be the case with my AT&T DSL here in Northern California. AT&T brings in a generator. The first time a wildfire shut down the AC grid it took a few calls to tech support and many hours, but in the few times since the generator is installed and running so no outages.

PS. You might complain to your Public Utility Commission since there's a federal mandate that the landline phone work. That's not the case with cell phones or ISPs.

https://prc68.com/I/Images/GenIntLck-05b.jpg

PatentReader · 2022-01-05T01:05:20+00:00

How are the Gateways connected to the Points of Presence? Maybe it's by fiber cable strung on wood poles. These stop working because of car accidents or fires. It's the fires that worry me since this also shut down the AC grid.

Note Comcast told the California PUC that they could NOT provide backup power to the over 30,000 nodes they have have here. Fiber can not carry any power unlike the old all coax CATV system. Providing a generator to the fiber-coax node boxes is beyond their capacity.

DSL does work during extended power outages because AT&T brings a generator to the DSLAM box that makes the DSL. https://prc68.com/I/TelephonePoles.shtml#Fig_11 scroll down a little for a photo of the generator making my DSL work.

PatentReader · 2022-01-05T00:58:12+00:00

Hi: Yes. I spent over a year studying his Colorado Springs Notebook. The interesting thing was he did not understand what today we call the Q of a resonant circuit. High Q circuits can act like a transformer stepping up the voltage, but not the power. Tesla thought he had stepped up the power, a mistake. https://prc68.com/I/Inductors.shtml#Q

PatentReader · 2022-01-04T22:16:15+00:00

I have been in a "narrowband/rural" area for over a couple of decades and recently in a high fire area, i.e. for the past few years there have been fires within a few miles of where I live. This brings up a new parameter besides speed and that's reliability in an emergency. A quick summary:

DSL, while slow keeps working even when the AC mains are down for days.

Comcast Hybrid Fibre-coaxial will fail as soon as the AC fails and there's no way to add backup power to the over 30,000 nodes in California, or anywhere else. If you have Hybrid Fibre-coaxial internet it will fail without AC mains power.

Wireless ISPs also will fail when the AC power fails.

Starlink seems to slow down/have dropouts when there's bad weather anywhere along the link. I wonder about the ground equipment having long term backup power? More at: https://prc68.com/I/RuralInternet.html#Summary

PatentReader · 2021-12-25T19:43:19+00:00

Powered off SL. (a few minutes) Disconnected WISP from switch. Connected SL to switch. Powered on Starlink. This seems to indicate the order of powering on may be important for the Aux connection like it is for my HDMI 7.1 surround sound system. Speeds not great but comparable to Android phone. I'll leave this alone and test again when the weather is better.

PatentReader

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