Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Um, Hi

     Hi.

      I retired "ALBERT" last week.  He did fine work, but we've got steam drills an integrated control/alert system now, and just in time; the wiring on the old rocking mercury switches that made those "aircraft lights" (not their real name: they're "Code Beacons") blink had almost worn though the insulation.

     (ALBERT's job was checking to see if the Code Beacons were blinking or not, accomplished by means of a current transformer/rectifier per light, each one producing a little zot of DC every time the light flashed.  A clever circuit called a "missing-pulse detector" checked that those little zots were arriving, and not too far apart; if they stopped, got too far apart, or stayed on, the missing-pulse detector nudged a NAND gate and the NAND gate told an optoisolator. The optoisolator told the remote control, the remote control told the operator on duty and he picked up a telephone and told me.  I'd tell him, "Okay, I'll check on it," and then start looking for my car keys and a change of socks.  One minor problem was that the newer Code Beacons use LEDs, which take a lot less current for the same light output.  ALBERT was never quite sure about them.)

6 comments:

Comrade Misfit said...

"Aircraft Lights Busted Endangering Radio Tower"

From a pilot's perspective, boy howdy, do I feel sorry for the poor little unlit radio tower if an aircraft hits it. Since that's almost always a 100% fatal event for everyone on board the aircraft.

But it does make for a nifty acronym.

JohninMd.(HELP?!??) said...

But does the unit have a left-handed flangeistat? Those are hard to find......

Roberta X said...

EB: The guy who named this thing had a long history of giving devices sarcastic names that were meant to amuse. There are no winners when pilots wander into towers (there's an FAA rule about that, as I am sure you know) but the people in the aircraft lose most.

I do know of one instance in Ohio when a hot-air balloonist struck a TV tower without (IIRC) fatalities. Pilot and passenger -- grandfather and grandson -- climbed down a thousand feet of ladder. Balloon and TV antenna were total losses.

Chuck Pergiel said...

Many moons ago, a couple of guys took off from Austin Texas heading for Dallas. The land is flat so they thought it would be clear sailing all the way, but they thought to look at the charts anyway, and what do they find? Some umpteen thousand foot tall radio antennae in Waco. They increased their altitude.

rickn8or said...

Roberta, I'm sure it was easier for those two to climb down that ladder than it would have been for me to climb up it; I only do such things at gunpoint.

Rick T said...

ALBERT sounds like the Pilot's version of ETOPS - "Engines Turn Or People Swim"