December 2005 Archives

I recently hijacked our car's portable XM music receiver, and have it hooked up in my office upstairs. Signal is tricky - the antenna is sticking to my lamp, facing the window, and gets just enough of the terrestial signal to work well.

About 2 feet away, is the base station for my phone.

The cool part: when my phone is in use, it generates enough radio frequency interference, that the XM radio signal is effectively blocked. Auto-mute! That's a feature you'd not be able to get, even if you were willing to pay for it..

Flying is definately making me relearn skills I haven't had to use in over 15 years. And, it is making me learn new ones, ones I'd never ever expected to seriously have to learn. Like, the slide rule. See the wikipedia's entry on the E6-B flight "computer". Whoda thunk?

I think the jury's still out on what I'll prefer to pack, but this device does seem to hold a morbid curiousity with me.