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Showing posts with the label ground

Electric shocks wherever you go? Try these

Solving unintended static discharges is a tricky question. You can build up a respectable amount of charge on your body if one of the following applies to you: Either the flooring, your chair, clothes or shoes are made of non-conducting, synthetic fabrics You rub the said fabrics a lot by walk or moving You touch grounded surfaces rarely Your skin is poorly conductive (dry) The air is low in humidity (the last two can be exaggerated by HVAC operation) Here are some things to try: Replace clothes or shoes Ground yourself through your shoes (wires and aluminium foil come to mind) Make the flooring or furniture more conductive Moisturize your skin Increase air humidity Wear uncoated conductive accessories (like a cold necklace or bracelets) Wear uncoated conductive accessories having (lots of)  pointy ends - tips may or may not be needed, but they can be made safer by wrapping in small tubes, it's the sharp air contact that matters. ...

Receiving FM radio without an antenna

I've started experimenting with my TV & radio tuners. One of them gets perfect reception on 15 of the 17 nearby FM radio stations in the area. It gives acceptable quality on the remaining two talk radios. It's an Asus 3in1, supporting hybrid PAL/DVB-T/DVB-S/FM. My UHF TV aerial is just a bare wire of proper length at the end of an extension cable. FM reception gets a bit weaker on some channels after disconnecting it. I've tried to disconnect every cable except the display, power and keyboard to no effect. A proposed explanation is coupling through the power lines and/or improper grounding. Three of the broadcasts are high power regional transmitters with nearby origin. The rest are local ones with reduced power that also transmit from the surrounding hills. I made a script that uses fmtools to scan and tune in channels. It also coordinates digital audio capture and playback from the card's ADC. I've also experimented with gnomeradio. Unfortunately, I ha...