Dave Heil wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote:

Slightly OT, but kinda fun anyhow.....

I'd been trying to locate a reasonably priced USB cable over the
weekend It seems that you often pay as much for the cable as you fo
for the device you are connecting to the computer.

Has stereo voodoo physics entered the computer realm?

Anyhow, I ended up in a Radio Shack store, found the cheapest cable I
could, (20 bucks) and made the mistake of mentioning something to the
salesman about the funny claims on the packages. Big mistake, I had
blasphemed his religion. In the next couple minutes I learned that:

Turns out that different frequencies travel at different speeds down
the cable. Good cables have special formulations of wire that
compensate for this.

Everybody knows that!

He didn't know what velocity factor was, but let me know that he
had taken physics classes, so he knew what he was talking about.

So why have u antenna gurus been misleading us?!


Now that my eyes have been opened I understand....

Looking at an antenna, it becomes obvious that the lower the
frequency, the slower the signal moves. The extra length of the
antenna allows the RF to accellerate enough so that when it reached
the end of the antenna, it has enough velocity to shoot out and not
float straight up. Those really high frequencies are zipping by so
fast that they hardly need any wire to get to TOSP (Take-off speed)

Wow, I have reached true enlightenment...............


Funny that you brought this up today, Mike. I happened to hit my local
RadShack yesterday in search of a Cinch-Jones power connector. I told
the salesman what I was looking for, an 8-pin Jones plug/socket set. He
asked if I was looking for a microphone connector. I explained what the
Jones plugs looked like and told him that they used to be standard fare
in at Radio Shack and that they stocked them in 2, 4 and 8 pin
varieties. He told me that he'd never seen nor heard of them.

I told him that I could likely use a strip of the European-style nylon
electrical connectors with screw terminals. He'd never heard of those
and said RadShack didn't stock them. I walked to a different section of
the store and pulled two of them off the rack.

Sigh.... and then a few months later RS pulls the parts because "no one
is buying this stuff", and puts up more cell phone posters....

All because some doofus doesn't know inventory. 8^(

I don't want to diss my local shack too much tho'. They are the nearest
one to the local University, and they keep a pretty fair stock. Probably
because the Electro-geek level is a little higher than some other
places.I shop there when possible to help keep it going.

I've gotten into several heated discussions with audio weenies over
oxygen-free cable, gold-plated connectors, carbon vs. metal film
resistors and mylar vs. paper capacitors. All of these guys swore up
and down that they could hear a difference in one item vs. the other.
I've offered to set up blind tests to see if they could, but none would
ever take me up on the offer.

It's just like testing ESP, or spoon bending. Something in the testing
process just changes something. You might ask those weenies if they have
any of those rocks that you are supposed to place someplace or another
to make the sound better.

- Mike KB3EIA -