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[renluop]

This morning I woke to find I had no internet connection, so couldn't listen to Today with a cuppa. Struggled for some time with the Zyxel, but nowt by Ethernet or Wireless, so gave up and went out to the PO to return some ink that was naff; then off to Bournemouth for a few hours. had lack lustre lunch at a department store, then walked down toward the beach with wife, I had to give up as my legs ( it happens sometimes) my legs seemed not to know where they were.

We returned home with legs that had gone normal again, and I set up my reserve Plusnet Hub One.

Wireless seems to work except for that radio. For some reason it still has the Zyxel's profile, and I can't workout how to delete it.

No radio then until their helpline gets back to me. Boo hoo

[sevenlayermuddle]

I have a collection of wireless devices transistor radios that I have restored, mainly Roberts & Bush, from 1960s and early 1970s.   

All are fully functional and capable of reliable reception of  Radio 4 and much more, with no dependence whatsoever on ISPs.   I wonder if this technology might catch on, one day?

[Weaver]

I have a 4G router if all else fails (AA/AQL/Three) and two 4G iPads (also AA/AQL/Three) and my wife has an EE iPhone. I’m hoping that lot should keep us going unless the basestation goes down, which unfortunately does happen.

[Ronski]

Simple answer is to configure the WiFi settings on the router to be the same as the zyxel, saves changing all WiFi devices.

[Weaver]

@renloup  - Hope you have lots of better days! 

[renluop]

Yep, all is well now. I shall keep taking the tablets night and morning!

[Alex Atkin UK]

Good job I looks at this thread, guess who forgot his tablets. 

[kitz]

Hopefully today is a better day

All are fully functional and capable of reliable reception of  Radio 4 and much more, with no dependence whatsoever on ISPs.

Your comment here and other comments in another thread about satellite TV makes you think about how much we are now relying on broadband.   Yet the other (older) technologies are more reliable.   There's been several times over the past 6 months when I've been watching a documentary or movie which has come to an abrupt halt just after midnight due to what I can only assume is BT/Openreach messing with something on the backhauls.     How often did that type of outage occur with terrestrial tv/radio and even satellite? 

[Alex Atkin UK]

Hopefully today is a better day


Your comment here and other comments in another thread about satellite TV makes you think about how much we are now relying on broadband.   Yet the other (older) technologies are more reliable.   There's been several times over the past 6 months when I've been watching a documentary or movie which has come to an abrupt halt just after midnight due to what I can only assume is BT/Openreach messing with something on the backhauls.     How often did that type of outage occur with terrestrial tv/radio and even satellite?

Depends, I consider adverts an "abrupt halt to my viewing" and they completely take me out of the show/movie.

[renluop]

Good job I looks at this thread, guess who forgot his tablets. 

I have a very able tablet maid matron.

[sevenlayermuddle]

The arbitrary time delays in digital broadcasting can also be a nuisance.  If I have Freeview TVs on in both lounge and kitchen, tuned to the same channel, the sounds I hear are never quite in sync owing to different buffering delays in different TVs.   I’ve noticed a pub I use has the same problem, two (same model) TVs in the bar but when both have the volume up the audio’s not quite synced, causing an unpleasant echo effect.

Whereas I can turn on as many analogue radios as I like all through the house, they will all play perfectly synchronised as there is no receive-side buffering in the first place.

And I do like to remind people, when watching a new year show with Big Ben bonging, if we wait for the first bong before we start exchanging greetings it’ll be far too late, so I start early.  Oddly, this never aids my popularity.

[Alex Atkin UK]

And I do like to remind people, when watching a new year show with Big Ben bonging, if we wait for the first bong before we start exchanging greetings it’ll be far too late, so I start early.  Oddly, this never aids my popularity.

Its always bothered me the idea that people actually count down with the TV.  If you're counting down to the second, even analog TV isn't going to be perfectly in sync, unless its a local broadcast.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Its always bothered me the idea that people actually count down with the TV.  If you're counting down to the second, even analog TV isn't going to be perfectly in sync, unless its a local broadcast.

Analogue delays really shouldn’t amount to much.   Even if a satellite is involved (which it wouldn’t be in the case of Big Ben at hogmanay), round trip to geosynchronous is only about a quarter of a second.

But I do agree, I could have enacted the same stunt in days of analogue.   I could have bellowed “Happy new year” before Big Ben bonged, on the basis of a calculation involving distance to transmitter, distance between BBC cameras and transmitter, and the speed of light.

I just feel that actually, my stunt would rarely be noticed in the realm of nanoseconds.  It is easier to make the point with today’s technology, where delays are usually several seconds or more.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Weren't live broadcasts on a few second lag for censorship/closed caption purposes as well as the transmission delay?

Plus obviously analog transmissions into a digital TV still had processing latency, so we'd be talking strictly pure analog CRT days for the lowest lag.

But a transmission from the south to the north I'm fairly certain was not lag free, EVER.

Here's an interesting discussion https://tvforum.uk/tvhome/tv-broadcast-delay-analogue-tv-days-44474/

The delay not only caused by the physical distance, but also the various encoding / decoding of the feeds from London to the Nations.

Which is what I was thinking, even in analog there were inherent delays when you were re-transmitting a signal from one part of the country to another.

I'm even less fun at parties. 

[sevenlayermuddle]

Satellites apart, delays would be measured in milliseconds.

I vaguely recall a show where viewers would call a number and use the DTMF key tones to play an interactive game on live TV.  Or even just the voice operated “golden shot”, which could be played either in studio or from home... 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Shot

Try that on digital, with latency of several seconds.   

I think modern live broadcasters do include an additional deliberate delay, to allow them to pull the plug if something terrible happens, before it gets seen.   But I’m not sure such technology even existed in 1960s and 70s.   If a streaker invaded the pitch, everybody got to see it.