On 06/02/2012 12:59, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In ,
wrote:
Also, the screws are pretty well recessed (on decent quality sockets
anyway) It's difficult to touch them with a finger accidentally.

Yes - that was one of the things wrong with the design. The faceplate can
be removed separately - rather like grid switches in the UK. Excellent
idea for re-decorating. But having the terminals so easily touched when it
is removed just poor design.

Do you mean that the US style socket has a removable faceplate? UK ones
certainly don't, unless perhaps some metalclad industrial units.
With a gridswitch unit, you'd have to be pretty determined to touch a
live terminal with the faceplate off.

Ron

On 06/02/2012 13:18, Arny Krueger wrote:
"Mike wrote in message
...
In articlePImdnRhFWezLuLHSnZ2dnUVZ_sSdnZ2d@giganews. com, Arny Krueger
writes

I'm not so sure about rings, but the doubled voltage looks good to me
given
that I would have enough appliances that ran on 240 volts to be
interesting.
I don't.

Think about it - your kettle would boil in half the time :-)

I get it. However, the 2-3 minute boil times I get with our current
technology seem to work out well enough.

I can boil 12 ounces of water in about 2 minutes in my 1200 watt microwave.

I can boil almost 2 liters of water in about 3 minutes in a 1500 watt
plastic pot with a built-in heatnig element.

In both cases the starting temperature of the water is about 45 degrees (F).

When I have people over for tea I set the pot to boiling when they arrive
and then reheat it in a few dozen seconds when needed.

A colleague went to work in the USA and complained about the weedy
kettles over there that take forever to boil. I suggested he take a UK
230V kettle over with him and run it off an extension to his stove
connection (i.e. 220V). Dunno if he ever bothered.

Seems like overkill, given the alternatives.


Oh good, we're going to argue about who can boil a kettle the fastest...
you couldn`t make it up!

Ron

In message , Mike Tomlinson
writes
NTSC = Never Twice the Same Colour. NTSC TVs had (still have?) a "Hue"
control for the user to twiddle when skin tones started looking a bit
green.
Correct. I still have one of the first Sony sets to enter the county
which had to use a slight variant of NTSC to get past the PAL patents,
it's fitted with a hue control which in effect rotates the quadrature
subcarrier (as in NTSC) to get the correct skin tones (the wrong colours
being caused by sub-carrier side band attenuation).
--
Clive

"Ron" wrote in message
...
On 06/02/2012 13:18, Arny Krueger wrote:
"Mike wrote in message
...
In articlePImdnRhFWezLuLHSnZ2dnUVZ_sSdnZ2d@giganews. com, Arny Krueger
writes

I'm not so sure about rings, but the doubled voltage looks good to me
given
that I would have enough appliances that ran on 240 volts to be
interesting.
I don't.

Think about it - your kettle would boil in half the time :-)

I get it. However, the 2-3 minute boil times I get with our current
technology seem to work out well enough.

I can boil 12 ounces of water in about 2 minutes in my 1200 watt
microwave.

I can boil almost 2 liters of water in about 3 minutes in a 1500 watt
plastic pot with a built-in heatnig element.

In both cases the starting temperature of the water is about 45 degrees
(F).

When I have people over for tea I set the pot to boiling when they arrive
and then reheat it in a few dozen seconds when needed.

A colleague went to work in the USA and complained about the weedy
kettles over there that take forever to boil. I suggested he take a UK
230V kettle over with him and run it off an extension to his stove
connection (i.e. 220V). Dunno if he ever bothered.

Seems like overkill, given the alternatives.


Oh good, we're going to argue about who can boil a kettle the fastest...
you couldn`t make it up!

No argument - the UK ring system seems to be vastly superior over our US 15
and 20 amp circuits when it comes to delivering more actual AC power to
appliances.

"Ron" wrote in message
...
On 06/02/2012 12:59, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In ,
wrote:
Also, the screws are pretty well recessed (on decent quality sockets
anyway) It's difficult to touch them with a finger accidentally.

Yes - that was one of the things wrong with the design. The faceplate can
be removed separately - rather like grid switches in the UK. Excellent
idea for re-decorating. But having the terminals so easily touched when
it
is removed just poor design.

Do you mean that the US style socket has a removable faceplate?

Yes. unscrew a screw or two...

Handy when you repaint the walls.

And if you want different style wall plate front piece, they have zillions
of them.

UK ones certainly don't, unless perhaps some metalclad industrial
units.
With a gridswitch unit, you'd have to be pretty determined to touch a live
terminal with the faceplate off.

Agrees with my experiences in Germany.

"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" wrote in message
...
David Looser wrote:
The original plan, drawn up in the early '60s, was to re-engineer Bands 1
and 3 for 625-line operation once the 405-line service was switched off;
but
it never happened. I guess that the powers that be thought that the
spectrum
could be more usefully used for other purposes.

More likely they thought that getting the free TV from France was too
much competition.

You forgot to add the smiley!

Just on the offchance that you meant this seriously I'd ask just how many
people in the UK would actually want to watch French TV?

UHF only TV's could not receive it.

Many TVs sold in the UK had multiband tuners, and frequency converters were
easily obtainable. So of all the many factors that stopped the British
watching French TV that one was by far and away the easiest and cheapest to
solve.

David.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

"J G Miller" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 05 Feb 2012 19:37:25 +0000, David Looser wrote:

So if you'd been glued to your TV from Sept 1939 to June 1946
you'd have seen the film twice, thus not "resumed at the exact point"

And complain that all the BBC television service does is
show repeats.

BBC's service to the US over cable seems to be pretty serviceable. They
have at least one channel on our local 999-channel digital system, and
they also have a number of offerings on OTA PBS. PBS is a nationwide
consortium of TV and radio stations, mostly initially operated by large
universities.

The last time I was in the States I complained to someone about just how
utterly dire all the radio stations were that I had tried to listen to on
the radio in my rental car. The response was "try PBS" which I did, and
found that about 50% of the output was simply a relay of the BBC world
service.

David.

Arny Krueger wrote:

If so, that's pretty shoddy. What's to stop it coming into
contact with the exposed hot and neutral screws on the outlet body as
the outlet is pushed back into the box?

Care and skill.

These items are at a premium in the electrical installation industry and
are often beyond the budget of the builder.

Bill

David Looser wrote:

When 405 ended most of us couldn't even remember it.

You ought to see a specialist about your memory problems Bill!

David.

I did make an appointment but I forgot to go.

Bill

Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
David Looser wrote:
The original plan, drawn up in the early '60s, was to re-engineer Bands 1
and 3 for 625-line operation once the 405-line service was switched off; but
it never happened. I guess that the powers that be thought that the spectrum
could be more usefully used for other purposes.

More likely they thought that getting the free TV from France was too
much competition.

UHF only TV's could not receive it.

Geoff.


Do many people on the south coast actually bother with French
transmissions? I didn't see many south-facing aerials when I ventured
into that neck of the woods.

Bill