Heather's Blogpile

My Home automation system recently stopped working. My bedside lights didn't come on at sunset, and I couldn't turn them on with the remotes either. Something blocked the signal!

But after some research through the xTension mailing list archives, and a quickly delivered XPPF plugin noise filter from PIGS Electronics http://www.pigselectronics.com/ my system is now working great again, and the problem is just a bad memory

I've been using X10 home automation gear for a few years now, first on the PC, then under OS X after I switched to the MAC Feb '04. I run a small automation system, using the XTension software (http://www.shed.com/) It autostart the coffeemaker at 5am, turns on some lamps based on Sunrise/Sunset events.

I just recently upgraded from a CM10 to the newer CM15 controller, and upgraded to the newer version of xTension (thanks Michael!). I did run around the house taking pictures of all the lamps and devices in OFF and ON mode, but I haven't created any views or room charts to use them with - so far I'm running strictly events and scripts.

In February I started having a problem where I couldn't control my bedside lamps. They wouldn't work from the Palmpads, from the trimline remotes, or from scripts on the Mac. Its very annoying to have to jump out of bed just to turn off the light on a cold winter night! I had recently gotten a Philips HDTV, and since the TV room is under the master bedroom, I had a hunch it might be related to the new TV. I found the xTension list archive and did quite a bit of reading, then did some troubleshooting, and I found that when the set was completely unplugged from electricity, the bedside lamps worked fine.

I did some more research and found out about line noise and filters - and decided to try the XPPF (X10 Plug in Filter) to isolate the problem. I googled for XPPF and I found a local (Baltimore, MD) vendor for X10 parts, PIGS Electronics http://www.pigselectronics.com/ . I ordered it from them Saturday afternoon and asked them to let me know if it wasn't in stock because I had a pronblem. Gary wrote back that he had it in stock and would ship priority-mail, and it was in the mailbox Tuesday afternoon! Thats service!

I plugged it into the wall, plugged the TV into it and bang - everything is working great again.

Posted by Heather at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

... my love is away, I've nothing more to say ...

Posted by Heather at 7:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Antenna Test: low mounted due to obvious snow issues

Test setup of my old (25+ yo) Winegard CA 9095 High gain UHF antenna with a Winegard AC 4990 Low Noise UHF Preamp, and an Alliance Tennarotor. I mounted this on a castiron staff for hanging baskets - I wasn't going on the roof with this snow!

I made the mistake of looking at High Definition TVs (HDTV) the last time I went by Circuit City. What an amazing picture - on a good set its like looking through a window. Of course, part of that excitement for me is from years of working in cable TV headends, looking at studio quality pictures just off the satellite dish. HDTV brings that kind of picture into your living room, and its amazing. Oh - did I mention that many HD shows have Dolby 5.1 sound?

There are a couple of critical things for High Def - to view it properly requires a Widescreen TV (a width: height ratio of 16:9, instead of the 4:3 of conventional TVs). Its a digital signal, so it requires a special tuner (ATSC) to decode the signal, instead of the NTSC tuner of older sets. And, most of the Over The Air (OTA) broadcast stations are sending their HD signals out using channels in the UHF band in addition to their older channel slots. So, you need a good UHF antenna, connected to an HD tuner, feeding to a Widescreen HD-Ready set ... and sending the audio to a good sound system is a plus!

Of course, I have a lot of interests in life, so doing anything with HDTV means working within a real tight budget - I'm not putting $2000+ into a TV set, even if it DOES look really good. My old 27' Zenith still works fine, so after some research, I figured the best approach was to get an HDTV tuner that would let me use my old TV. (At least until I buy an HD Ready set to go along with it). I knew using my Zenith would be a "downgrade" - viewing just a portion of the HDTV signal on an NTSC set instead of seeing all the pixels on an HD Ready set - but I'm waiting for a real deal on one of those, and I can watch the clean pictures with digital sound until I find a set. I have a component Audio system, why not a component Video system? Thats basically what I already have with a Tv and AV Receiver and VCR and DVD anyway ... And to really ice the cake, I got a cheap Sony 8" Subwoofer for under $100 - that extra "boom" makes a lot of difference! It makes the room that much more like a theatre - when watching action films, or classical music - even Fantasia on old VHS tapes!

Posted by Heather at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)