In Defense of Daylight Savings Time

(Note: I had just finished this post when I learned that the British Columbia Legislature had passed legislation to establish permanent Daylight Time in the province.)

Mark my words: there will be plenty of negative consequences; and they will reverse this decision within two or three years.

This post is all about time.

For years, there has been a growing clamour for the end of Daylight Savings Time (hereinafter referred to as Daylight Time). For all the (pardon my language) whining that goes on every spring and fall, you'd swear that the nation shuts down every time change, as all those poor, stunned souls try bravely to adapt their hidebound routines to a shift of one hour.

Perhaps I've been fortunate. I've never been one to gauge the passage of time by hunch and gut feeling; I take what the clock says.

Also, for more than 50 years I have been a DXer, in the AM broadcast band, so I often stay up late or get up early to chase those loggings. In short, I've learned to live and thrive on variations in my sleep schedule.

Here's how the time change goes for me: I wake up and note the sun ahead of or behind its usual position. I look at the clock, and that's what time it is. Sure, I have the occasional sensation that the day is out of sync; but as I said, I'm quite accustomed to that. When the clock says it's time to sleep, I go to bed. If I'm not ready for bed, I'll stay up an hour--and the next night I'll have no problem going to bed 'early' or 'late'.

In case anyone is interested, the purpose of Daylight Time is to shift our clocks to make use of the morning sunlight. This trick works wonderfully well in summer, when the sun would otherwise rise around 4am in most of southern Canada. In fact, back in the late Eighties, the province of Newfoundland experimented with Double Daylight Savings Time. Huge success, but any media coverage focused on the extreme inconveniences, as it it had caused people to be barely able to function.

Now, let's have a look at the consequences of permanent daylight or standard time.

PERMANENT STANDARD TIME

Permanent Standard Time seems a no-brainer, especially in winter, when the run rises close to 8am, and sets shortly after four in the afternoon. But let's fast-forward to summer. Now, because we're on Standard Time year-round, get ready for 4am sunrises, and sunsets around 8pm. Bleah! Most of us miss out on two solid hours of daylight in the morning, with Daylight Time. No--let's throw away three hours of daylight, and let the sun set mid-evening while we're all still awake. Oh, yeah, much better...

PERMANENT DAYLIGHT TIME

So, most people are recommending a shift to permanent Daylight Time. This introduces problems in the winter. Now, the sun will rise close to 9am in the winter, and set shortly after five. That's hardly an improvement. So you'll get up, eat breakfast, get washed, changed, see the kids off to school, commute to work--all in the dark. I'm betting that there will be a significant and persistent rise in traffic crashes and pedestrian deaths. The dubious payoff is that now it's light for half of your evening commute. Big whoop.

IN THE END

In the end, it boils down to a simple question: are longer summer days worth an hour's inconvenience twice a year? And, if not, which way will you lean: going to work in the dark for all of January; or summers where the evenings last two hours, max? I promise you, in the long run, it's just not worth it.

Genderless Pronouns: I Think You're Using Them Wrongly

 A headline caught my eye the other day, along the lines of: [Insert name here] wanted to use the pronoun 'they' when referring to themself.

Okay; I understand that there are people who are in search of an identity, or have established an identity outside of traditional societal norms; and they are uncomfortable being referred to as 'he' or 'she', 'him' or 'her'. I totally get that. I am one-hundred-percent supportive.

However, I think that the term is being used incorrectly.

The English verb "to be" is conjugated in a variety of ways, depending upon the subject of the sentence.

When referring to more than one person, we say "They are..." We do this because 'they' is a plural pronoun.

When referring to a single person we say "He/She is..." We do this because 'he/she' is a singular pronoun.

When referring to a person of undeclared gender, we should be saying "They is..." We would do this because 'they', in this instance, is being used as a singular pronoun.

So: they is, they was.

The form "they are" should only be used to refer to more than one person.

Now I'll sit by to catch shit from everybody who thinks I'm insensitive, anti-gender-fluidity, or splitting hairs.

Fergus' Big Adventure

Fergus is one of two cats in our household. a grey tabby with an elegant white goatee, a pink nose and worried little eyes. He joined us from the Ottawa Humane Society, just over a year ago.

In the house, Fergus is a confident cat. He marches around with his tail up in the air, and when he meows, he expects answers--now. He's affectionate, athletic and intensely curious. He's at Mommy's side for large parts of the day. In most respects, Fergus is what they call a co-pilot.

Outside the house, Fergus goes feral, immediately hiding away and not recognizing familiar faces. If someone comes to the door when Fergus is down there, we know instantly, because he comes sprinting up the stairs for his life!

Fergus and his buddy, Buddy, enjoy trips onto the balcony. In the summer, there are plants to play in; in winter, there is the snow (dig-dig-dig!);  and, always, there is plenty to look at through the railings.

Our balcony is bordered by a continuous wooden rail, about six inches wide. It extends beyond the dividing panels, so that if you sight along it, you'll see all the way to the end.

In recent months, Fergus had taken occasionally to jumping up onto the rail. He'd catch it and scramble up, so I always had plenty of time to retrieve him.

Thursday afternoon, December 31, around 2pm, I took the cats outside. All was going normally, when Fergus, out of the blue, leapt up onto the rail,  executed a perfect four-point landing, and crossed and jumped down into the next balcony.

The next little while features a comedy of unfortunate circumstances. Our neighbour was home at the time; he opened his door, to see what the commotion was about, and Fergus ran inside--then right back outside, and up onto the rail again. Realizing then that he was in unfamiliar territory, he began giving off alarm sounds, then jumped down to the balcony at two-over.

We watched, called and shook treat bags for hours. As far as we could tell, Fergus was still up on that balcony. Every couple of days thereafter, we would

check the yards below, for signs of a cat landing. Nothing. On January 2 or thereabouts, we had a good snow, followed by a couple of chilly nights. We still hadn't seen or heard from Fergus, and hopes were beginning to fade.

In the meantime, I had done a bit of reading. American sources say that a indoor-only cat should not stay out for extended periods below about 8 degrees celsius. Well, this is Ottawa; where the temperature starts going below 8 degrees in September. The chances just weren't looking good.

Still, we didn't stop hoping. Every night, we would shout for Fergus and rattle a bag of treats. We kept setting out bowls of food--just in case. We had a night-vision camera rigged to view the balcony. We slept in shifts.

Fast forward to Tuesday. First, I noticed that the kibble bowl was empty. I pointed this out to Tonia, who related that Buddy had had a few outings and had snuck a nibble or two. I counterpointed out, as it were, that the kibble was now gone. Later, I realized that the wet food had been eaten, and that there were kitty prints in the fresh-fallen snow on the balcony rail.

Peeking into neighbouring balconies, I saw clear indications that a cat had been visiting. Thank you, snow, for preserving tracks and landing marks.

Now, in the 30-odd years that I have been living here, I have only once seen a cat up on the balcony rail; about 10 years ago. Also, the nocturnal visits meant a cat was spending its time outdoors. I put two and two together, and came up with Fergus.

He visited again Tuesday night, but not on Wednesday night. Bit of a noisy night, with salt trucks prowling round, people grabbing garbage and recycling off their balconies, etc.; plus it was very lightly snowing/raining.

Last night, we were ready. Tonia took the first shift, until just after midnight. She kept the lights mostly off. As she was getting up from the couch,  she spotted him, and they made eye contact for a few seconds; then he skedaddled (that's an old term for "fucked off"). So I came down, maintained the vigil. About two o'clock in the morning, I concluded that I wasn't going to catch him tonight. As I got up, I saw his little head peeking around the corner at me. Shit, thought I. I grabbed the bowl of food off the balcony, threw it into the microwave for about 15 seconds, to warm it up and make it stinkier, then placed it back onto the balcony. I decided just to take a glance down the row.

Fergus was sitting on the rail, two balconies away, just watching.

Forgetting myself, I began faintly calling his name. He started to meow at me. At first, I thought that they were warning meows; but then I realized that he was coming toward me! It took everything I had to keep my cool; yes, hi Fergus, it's me, good kitty; here, smell my fingers, see, you know me; hi, guy, how've you been--grab!

 I was expecting an explosion of feline cursing and slashing, but he was quiet. I stepped back inside, and closed the door; and Fergus was home.

The next few minutes were pandemonium. Fergus meowed his face off and ran upstairs to give Mommy cuddles; then he needed to be fed, and plied with treats; now he's getting reacquainted with Buddy, who must be gobsmacked by the whole thing; two weeks and twelve hours ago, Fergus went outside and disappeared; now, two weeks later, he has magically reappeared.

In hindsight, we have realized that Fergus spent two weeks holed up on someone's balcony, probably terrified, not moving, with very little to eat or drink. Thank fate that it has been unseasonably warm for the past two weeks.

*Phew!*

-Bill

Reality Check: Transfer of Consciousness

There is a certain public misconception, bolstered largely by Hollywood, that, in a few years' time, we'll all be able to transfer our consciousnesses into a robot body.

I offer up some arguments as to why that is unlikely ever to happen.

First off, the technology argument.

• The human brain is an incredibly complex machine, with something on the order of 100-billion synapses--the tiny components that store information. It is all arranged in a roughly hemispherical shape. To transfer all of that data, the brain must be scanned. The only way in which we can scan below the surface layer is to remove that layer. Thus, it must be a destructive process. Second, it must occur immediately after death, and not take too long, lest we lose information. I imagine that the process would, in implementation, be similar to that depicted in the television series Upload.
• The technology for scanning the brain hasn't been invented yet and, given the current advance of technology, won't likely be for at least another hundred years.
• In order for this to work, you will need a computer. If you are to be conscious, then this computer must be capable of consciousness itself--or figure out how to simulate it. It must also have a tremendous amount of storage space. We've barely scratched the surface of understanding consciousness; and, again, its implementation is likely to be in excess of 100 years away. 

Second, the pragmatic argument.

• All of the above presumes that you will die, and then, after a brief pause, you will regain consciousness in a computer-generated environment. I don't believe that. I believe that consciousness is tied to the physical domain it occupies. When you die, it's game over for you. You will never regain consciousness again. What will regain consciousness will have all of your memories and experiences--but it won't be you. It will be like a You II.

Finally, a thought experiment--one of Einstein's Gedankenexperiments.

Imagine this scenario:

You die, and your brain is scanned. The results are then fed into a network of ten computers, each of which will host a new you. The network signals arrive at the computers simultaneously.

My question is: In which computer will you wake up in? All of them at once? That would be mightily confusing.

Until you can answer that question with a valid argument, the answer is: "It ain't gonna happen anytime soon."

Are you really enthusiastic about your life carrying on without you?

Because that's about the best science will be able to do for about a thousand years.

Be well,

-Bill

Learn to Pronounce!

There are certain words in the English language which are habitually mispronounced by most people, and it drives me nuts. The pronunciation is clear from the spelling; yet folks constantly mispronounce.

Here's a short list.

"Tempachure" This one bothers me a lot. In fact, the mispronunciation is so common that I genuinely believe that most people do not know the correct way. Ugh!

"Febyuary" Is it really that hard to pronounce the 'r' after the 'b'?

"Fitty" This one grates on my nerves. When you can't even pronounce "fifty," I... bleah. This one is now working its way into advertising, and in ten years, everybody but me will be saying it that way.

"Athalete" Why the compulsion to put a vowel between the 'th' and the 'l'? Jesus...

"Ezzackly" Yes, exactly.

"Gummint" This is more an Americanism, but it's being heard more frequently north of the border, these days.

"Ax" If I'm greeted one more time by a young person asking, "Hey, dude, can I ax you something?" I'll scream.

There are others; but these are the ones which really grate on my nerves.

Now, that said, I know that there are plenty of people out there who have bothered to learn the correct pronunciation of words; the problem is that there are plenty more who haven't. It's such a basic thing; we use language every single day of our lives.

Be well,

-Bill

Weasels

Over the years, I've noticed a few disturbing trends in advertising. They are more or less obvious, but I'm going to point them out anyway.

The first and most obvious trend is advertising pollution. Apart from when outdoors, it's growing increasingly difficult to find something at which to stare, which is not sporting some sort of advertising.

Just in my lifetime, there has been a huge explosion in the amount of advertising to which we are exposed. Print, radio and television were already advertising media; but now we have the Internet; this post is probably surrounded by ads.

Just on a quick glance around the room here, I notice the following brand names: Lenovo, HP, Epson, Grand & Toy, Bell, Fluid, LCBO, Band-Aid, Friskies, Kleenex, Samsung, Tensor, McDonald's, Logitech, C. Crane--and I'll stop there. It's not a big room; maybe four metres square.

We really can't escape it. Even our clothing carries brand logos.

It's only going to get worse.

Second up, I don't appreciate the number of weasel words and phrases that advertisers use. "My husband was showing the signs of a heart attack, so he chewed..." They carefully don't state that he was, in fact, having a heart attack; only that he had the symptoms. Another good (and recent) example is a particular website touting its price reviews. "When I see the Good Price badge, I absolutely trust that." That's nice; you must be a trusting soul to give it a thumbs-up without any supporting evidence.

The third trend, and the one that I find most unreasonable, is the use of "simulations" of the product in action. Wait a minute. If you are advertising for a product, shouldn't you actually have to show the product in actual use? There is currently a cleaning product using that method; and I'm sorry, but there ought to be a law about that. Show the actual product, under real-life conditions, in realtime.

What I do infer, when I see that kind of advertising, is that the product obviously can't cut it in real life; and I add that product to my Do Not Buy list. Their attempt to induce me to buy the product has backfired. I can't believe that nobody out there realizes this. It's not, to borrow the vernacular, rocket science.

There. I feel better. This better moment was sponsored by Pfizer.

Be well,

-Bill

FM DX

As regular readers are aware, I have been DX'ing now for some 45 years. I started very young.

Over those 45 years, I've always confined my search for long-distance stations to the AM broadcast band. Recently, however, I've become interested in FM DX'ing; and I recently gave it a try.

It's different. Propagation at FM frequencies happens infrequently, and is largely seasonal, occurring, at temperate latitudes, mostly in the warm months.

FM DX sounds differently from AM DX. There is next to no fluttering; signals vary mostly by strength. You'll find that, in general, FM DX is much more directional; from here in Ottawa, I've heard signals from upstate Near York (about 100 km to the south), but still haven't logged the station in Rockland, Ontario, some 40 km east.

Identification is a little harder than on AM; music tends to predominate, and so the music format can be a strong clue. Voice identifications are less frequent, and more often station nicknames (e.g. "Jack FM") are colloquially used. Also, station listings are harder to come by.

I've quickly learned that one invaluable resource for FM DX'ing is forecast maps. One good such example is the DX Info Centre, maintained by William Hepburn. To cut to the quick: watch for a coloured area shading where you live. You can advance the forecast with the left and right arrows.

My total thus far is modest: 37 stations. But, it's a beginning; let's see where it stands in 30 years. ;)

Be well,

-Bill

The End of Knowledge

The title is a bit of a teaser.

For the past 50 years, I have immersed myself in matters astronomical. A voracious reader, I've pored through astronomy publications and periodicals, and drained the Internet of virtually every bit of information I can glean from it. I have about 30 years of visual and telescopic amateur astronomy, in addition. Hell, by grade seven I could talk the average person's ear off about stuff they wouldn't even have understood.

Where does that leave me? At this point, my base of general astronomical knowledge is as great as any amateur's. Ask me virtually anything about astronomy, or cosmology, or even astrophysics, and 99 percent of the time, I'll have an answer.

Let me be clear: I don't pretend to have the skills and knowledge of someone with a degree in astronomy; there are areas, such as orbital calculations, that I've not really touched on, more for lack of resources than for anything else. I haven't done calculations involving gravity (though I did deduce the rules for planetary velocity at about age 18).

Point is, to learn anything more about astronomy, I would just about have to enroll in a university. I'm running out of Internet resources; I scan the astronomy news sites daily. More and more, I find myself branching out into physics, particle physics, and quantum theory--there are plenty of resources out there, including lectures.

I watch television shows about astronomy, but generally the only new things I learn from them are minutiae (this morning, I learned that the first name of Mr. Penzias, who with Robert Wilson discovered cosmic background radiation in the 1960s, is Arnold.)

My best bet is to search university public resources, as some universities put their curriculum online. To that end, I've begun to take out my math and play with it again, so to speak. I finished high-school math a year early; and I keep my mind nimble; so it really shouldn't be a challenge.

That's it; just bitching/bragging on a beautiful spring morning.

My knee bursitis, by the way, now appears to be ebbing. Last night, my legs were merely stumps, not bloody stumps; and I'm looking forward to a day of good legs, as soon as I've done my priming walk of about 300 metres. Riding the bike actually seems to be helping; the trick is to go slow and build up gradually. My legs at this point do not have a lot of strength or stamina.

Be well,

-Bill

Nuts...

I've been battling knee problems for the last nine years or so.

It all started with a walking event in Kanata, late in 2011 or thereabouts. I remember bombing along in my usual fashion, but I also remember a grinding sensation in my knee. I remember that it began to get painful when I bent my left knee.

It got worse the following spring, when, literally, a knee-jerk reaction resulted in an impact injury to the same knee. Following that. I could no longer bend my left knee; and so I adopted a very distinctive stride, my right leg working properly, and my left knee stiff. It worked well that way for many years; but last year, things took a turn for the worse.

Beginning in December, I noticed that my knees were growing increasingly tender at night, particularly if I had walked the day before. The pain was persisting well into the day. A short walk would 'fix' my knees wonderfully--but I couldn't put together a walk of more than a kilometre, without it causing great pain the next day.

For years, I've largely dismissed my problems as "arthritis", and inevitable. I knew that at some point, I'd need to 'have my knees done'; a long, painful process. Now, push has come to shove, and I'm Taking Steps.

The first thing that I did was to look up my particular problem with my knee. I can step stiff-legged, or I can step a bit higher; but bending my knee at the angle required for walking causes it to lock up, as it were (the knee can only be straightened against great resistance, and at great pain). It sounds very much like a meniscal tear. That can usually be repaired by arthroscopic surgery, and the recovery period is short.

A sensation yesterday morning tipped me off to the possibility that the other problem is knee bursitis; a 'squeaking' sensation, similar to rubbing your fingers together when they're coated in chicken grease; a rapid-fire give-hold-give sensation.

Knee bursitis is treatable; one of the most important treatments is staying off the knees.

So, in order to facilitate this, yesterday I put my bicycle on the road. It's nothing much; a 1983 vintage ten-speed; it's so my style.

Now, I try to be responsible these days; so I carefully inspected the bike, made sure that the cables were tight; that the tires were in good shape; etc. I carefully tried the gear shifters and the pedals, all manually.

Now, picture the sequence as I get going: I mount the bike, quickly make sure that my right foot is nestled in the pedal trap, and start pedalling.

Problem: the chain itself is off of the rear sprocket, and whips around uselessly.

I fall off to the left, most spectacularly, in true old-man fashion. People stop. You okay, sir? Knowing glances--what was this old man doing, trying to ride a bike?

I managed to shrug off my embarrassment, set the chain onto the sprocket, and go for a nice ride.

I was mostly unhurt by the fall, by the way. I've sprained my left thumb.

So, for the next little while, it's no walking for me. And, as soon as the coast is clear, I'm going to see my doctor about my knee trouble.

Like a responsible older gentleman.

Blah.

Big Changes Coming to Retail

I've decided that it's time to step a little outside my area of expertise, as I've spotted some trends which I believe will affect the retail landscape over the next twenty years.

In short: it's going to be way different.

The Rise of Online Shopping

Online shopping has been taking chunks out of the retail market for a few years, now. Shipping times are dropping, and it has become convenient to order many of the things we need online. This trend is only going to continue. Shopping malls will be a thing of the past, save for so-called mini malls and perhaps in rural locations. Most of the things that we do not need on a daily basis will only be available online. The main streets of cities and towns will be largely abandoned and will ultimately give over to new residential developments.

What Does it Mean?

For the average consumer, it means much less choice. As we have seen, the Internet ecosystem favours large, de-facto monopolies--Google, Facebook, Amazon, and so on--and that trend will only continue. I can clearly see where, in twenty years' time, almost all of your online transactions will be with a single provider, because there will be only one, unless current laws are amended and enforced. Further, that single provider will know everything about you, including probably your health records, and will be able to tailor its advertising directly to your tastes. Or modify your tastes by offering slightly different products than you are used to. All of these transactions will probably be by way of a credit card (the lack of which, even today, brands one as a non-person), and that card will probably be hacked several times per year. I say this because, through all of human history, the pace of technology has outstripped our ability to control or deploy it helpfully. The Internet has several basic flaws which cannot easily be repaired at this point, and your expectations of online privacy in the future will be zero. Retail stores will be limited to specialty shops in larger cities, convenience and grocery stores. There may be a few general-type stores in rural areas.

The Pandemic Effect

The current COVID-19 pandemic, courtesy yet again of Asia's filthy wildlife markets, is going to effect some permanent changes, also--some of them probably for the better; many of them for the worse. Making a comeback will be Consumers Distributing-type stores, where one orders and is served from a wicket. Less mingling, goes the theory. Already some stores have implemented this. This business model was largely de rigeur in the 1930s and 1940s. It's coming back, to stay.

In grocery stores, once supplies become available, disposable gloves will be offered at the door. That will stop probably 70-80 percent of infections, right there. Possibly even face masks. This will be permanent.

Another innovation

This pandemic effect will be exacerbated by its increasing recurrence. In the past, a pandemic was largely allowed to run its course. But COVID-19 is too deadly; and once out among the general population, it will be difficult to eradicate. Future pandemics are likely to be just as deadly, and we're all going to have to get used to this. The promise of a vaccine is not as helpful as it sounds, as so many people have latched onto the anti-vax movement as onto astrology--and astrology is based more on reality.

Other changes are coming to the business world in general. Many more people will be working from home in the near-future; and if I had any money, I'd be investing in providers of those services (Citrix, FortiClient, etc.). We've probably nearly hit Peak Office. There will be far fewer construction cranes downtown, for the foreseeable future.

One Last Thought:

Paper money and coins will start disappearing within the next 10 years. That's a major freedom, and we need to fight for it.

Why Think About This Now?

Because by the time it happens, you won't be able to do anything about it. I'm not looking forward to having to order most of my stuff from Amazon, and being chided for buying items which conflict with my health records, and being reminded to do the things I was going to do anyway, for my health, and wearing an activity monitor for insurance purposes. Every transaction that I make will be tracked and probably scrutinized--probably by Amazon, too.

Get ready for it. It ain't pretty; and it's a whole lot less free--but it's coming.

Climate Change in Ottawa: 30-Year Report

I have lived in the Ottawa region for 34 years, now. I have always had more than a passing interest in the weather and meteorology. Let's combine the two, and see what comes out.

1. It's Getting Warmer

Over 30 years, the weather in Ottawa has gradually grown warmer, especially in Winter.

Anecdotal Evidence:
In the Eighties, temperatures frequently ventured down into the minus-thirties. News stories abounded, showing steam plumes off of every building, and people freezing through daytime highs in the mid-minus-twenties.

Now? It doesn't happen. Oh, once every few years, you'll get a low temperature in the minus-thirty range; but only one, and only once per winter. Generally, the lowest the temperature gets nowadays, in an average winter, is about -26.

Direct Evidence:
If you graph the daily temperature records for the year, against the dates they were set, a remarkable pattern emerges: again, especially in Winter, the low-temperature records were generally set years ago--decades ago--while the high-temperature records have been set in the past few years. It's really quite striking, when viewed in this way, and delivers an unambiguous argument that the climate is warming.

The Rideau Canal: In the eighties, it often opened in late-December; and skating generally lasted into mid-March. In recent years, it almost never opens before mid-January, almost always closes by late February; and this year, for the first time, not all sections of the Canal were opened. It's a trend.

Winterlude: Ottawa's famous winter festival is at risk of busting. In the past, the carnival was a 10-day event in mid-January. But it kept running into the January thaw. So they broke it up into three weekends, and ran it mid-February. Problem is, in recent years, there's often a meltdown mid-event. Our winters eventually will become too inconsistent to hold a major winter carnival, at all. I expect that to happen in the next 20-30 years. I also expect still to be talking about it at that point.

2. Winters are Getting Shorter

That's a process that seems to have accelerated somewhat in recent years.

I can only offer anecdotal evidence for this one. In the eighties, winter was usually well underway by mid-December. The snow often began falling in early November. I remember one winter, in the early nineties, when we didn't get a major snowfall, and the Canal didn't freeze, until late November.

Contrast that with today, when the Canal is often still unfrozen into mid-December; and often the first major snowfall now occurs in that month, too.

Yep; it's changing. Only an idiot can still murmur about natural processes, at this point.

Have a warm one,

-Bill

700! A DX'er Exults

As regular readers of this column may be aware, I have been DX'ing since 1975; or, for 45 years. I've been doing it in the Ottawa area for the past 34.

As you also may know, DX'ing is the attempt to receive radio stations over long distances. In my case, I chose to focus on AM radio.

As of this morning, I have now logged 700 distinct stations, from this area.

Putting it into perspective: there are approximately 120 AM frequencies available. This means that I've received, on average, almost six stations for every frequency. On only one or two frequencies have I never been able to log more than one station; and for some (the so-called graveyard channels), the total is close to 15.

I consider a 'distinct station' to be one that is identifiable by its frequency, callsign, and location. On the rare occasion that a station changes its callsign or frequency, then when I hear it again, I'll record it as a new station. If a station changes location, I generally ignore it, unless they switch transmitting locations (very rare, indeed).

Over the years, there have been many changes in the hobby. Audibly, in some cases; Canadian AM stations are largely switching to FM, and as a consequence French is disappearing from the band. At the same time, Spanish is increasingly heard from US stations.

The old clear-channel frequencies are slowly filling up. There are stations in Texas, for example, which I haven't heard since the eighties. My average distance per station has been steadily dropping.

In the Nineties, the expanded AM band (1610-1700 KHz) opened up, and there was a rash of loggings from low-powered travel information stations. Some of them were just jaw-dropping; a TIS from an airport in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, for example, running at most 10 Watts, with a daytime reach of maybe a kilometre. (For reference, I've logged the airport TIS in Ottawa--barely more than ten kilometres away, and operating at the same Wattage--only twice.)

Over all of those years, my greatest catch remains Vatican Radio, on 1611 KHz, in the late-nineties. That's a good third of the way around the world.

The ways you can identify a station have also evolved. Whereas, in the past, identifying a station took place primarily with the aid of printed references, which quickly run out-of-date, today we have the Internet. Vast numbers of stations can be heard in near-real time, thanks to streaming; and numerous Internet-based references exist.

There are many tricks I've employed over the years; the old canner-lid trick, to block strong signals from one direction, allowing fainter signals from another direction to trickle through; it's how I logged 1070 KNX, Los Angeles, from the West Coast, in the null of local station CFAX, in Victoria. I've used numerous loop antennas, the occasional longwire (in an urban environment, that's usually tricky, and potentially very noisy). I'll often tune one or two kilohertz away from a frequency, to better eliminate adjacent-channel interference. I'll play with the bass and treble controls, or audio bandwidth, to optimize for the voice I'm hearing.

The biggest factor, overall has been persistence. In the Fall, when the sun returns to setting early enough to make DX'ing worthwhile again, it takes me a couple of weeks really to get familiar with my station listings again. From then, until late Spring, I know my stations well, which makes it much easier to identify a station on the fly--and much easier to spot something that 'doesn't belong'. If you DX only occasionally, you'll constantly be asking yourself, "What's that station?"

That's my two cents' worth at 700. I'll chime in again about it when I reach 1,000. That'll be in ten or fifteen years.

Until then, be well. ;)

-Bill

Business as Usual

Well, four months in, with our bright, shiny new LRT already falling apart, a few things are becoming clear:

• The Rideau Transit Group has sold us a lemon;
• The contractors for the Phase II extension of the north-south line had no idea what they were even proposing; yet they were accepted as the low bidder;
• The City knew for months that raw sewage was leaking into Parliament Station, yet apparently did nothing;
• The City and OC Transpo blew the transition. Totally blew it.

First off, the LRT keeps breaking down. Faulty switches; EZ-Jam Doors; overhead wires falling down; computer failures; "wheel flats" (which are what they sound like); and the list goes on. This week, they are running "S1" supplementary bus service parallel to the O Train lines, because they don't have sufficient trains available to handle the load. Word is that Rideau Transit Maintenance, the turkeys hired to maintain the system, have been overwhelmed by these wheel flats, which aren't supposed to happen in a modern rail system.

On top of it all, the system was originally planned for 15 two-car trains. But the most that the Powers that Be have been able to operate (occasionally) is 13. That means longer waits for a train (when it's actually working), and greater crowding in the death-trap stations kindly provided for us. (I'm serious: when there's trouble, it's so crowded that you can't move).

Second, the City's acceptance of the winning bid for the Phase II extension borders on the criminal. The 'winning' proposal (from TransitNext, which is exactly the same set of suspects as constructed the 'Confederation Line'--smart; I'd change my name, too, after pulling a stunt like that) was turned down flat by the evaluation committee. It was clear that it had been cobbled together by people who didn't know what they were doing; it frequently makes reference to a 'catenary power system,' when the Line 2 trains are diesel. All I can say is, we're again going to get exactly what we pay for. And, again and again, we reward shitty performance with follow-on work.

The issue of raw sewage leaking into Parliament Station is an odd one. People were reporting the smell in the area, long before the line opened--and for months thereafter. The City finally 'fessed up about four months in. No explanation for the lag. Shut up and grab a nonexistent strap.

To rehash from previous columns, the City and OC Transpo totally blew the transition to LRT. They began cutting down on bus routes even before the trains rolled; sold off the buses immediately, and gave drivers pink slips. Several weeks later, when they came to the realization that a workable LRT system for Ottawa was at least a year away, they desperately tried to beg, borrow or steal buses from other municipalities, and begged for laid-off drivers to come back. Because of union rules, which meant that you had to re-enter the workforce at the bottom of the totem pole, most of the drivers told them to go hang.

So now we're in a colossal mess, and any fix is still months away. Meanwhile, buses--already cut back drastically--are being lifted to ensure a ready fleet for breakdowns.

So far, the City has been withholding payments to RTM, to cover the additional costs. Clearly, this cannot continue, or RTM will go bankrupt--which will open a whole new can of worms.

Either way, I can see the whole thing collapsing into endless lawsuits which will drain the city coffers.

Sadly, this is the way we do things in Ottawa; in a stab-blindly sort of way, with all the chips stacked in favour of the contractor. And, again and again, we get screwed. And, again and again, we reward this usurious behaviour. From all of this emerges a pattern: that the Mayor and Council are largely in the pockets of developers, "builders," whatever you'd like to call them. Mind, this is nothing new; when I first arrived, 30-some years ago, people were already carping about that.

Finally, a prediction: there's going to be an 'incident' at one of our new LRT stations. People will try to stampede in confining quarters, and there will be a few deaths and numerous injuries. And only then will our City Mothers realize the risk they've been putting us all through. Sadly, they can't shut down the LRT system, to fix it properly, because they've long ago given up the equivalent bus capacity. The resulting lawsuits are going to be hideous; and our grandchildren will still be paying them off.

Here's another prediction: those British experts from JBA, called in to babysit RTM's maintenance efforts, are going to strive mightily for three months and then, in the face of ever-mounting failures, are going to wash their hands of the mess.

So far, my predictions have not been wrong. I've been calling it correctly since the first doomed contract was signed, decades ago.

So, whom do we have to thank for this mess?

Suspect #1: Mayor Jim Watson. He's staked his career on LRT. But as more details leak out about the Top Secret procurement process (which, public money being involved, should never have happened in the first place), it's clear that the whole thing stunk to high heaven. And, I'm sorry, but he's gambled with a huge chunk of our money--and lost. He's the guy trying to justify a price hike for transit--at a time when it's not even working; when it's in its worst state since transit began in Ottawa! He's gotta be losing friends in business, left and right, since his fancy new transit system is costing local employers hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity, since their employees cannot get in to work. Nobody's been mentioning that. Yet.

Suspect #2: OC Transpo Boss John Manconi. Here is a guy who never rides the bus--in charge of a transit system that is so bad, you generally have to leave at least an hour early to have any chance of getting where you're going on time. OC Transpo has gone from being held in some esteem, years ago, to a laughingstock--a joke. He made the decision to decimate the bus fleet when it was still badly needed. He's the head of an organization that doesn't know how to run a train, and has forgotten that buses still make up a major part of its fleet.  I don't know how else to say it: Manconi has been a total failure since Day One. Get rid of this guy!

Those are the two to focus on, at the moment. I promise my next column will be about something other than Ottawa's LRT.

In the meantime, here in Ottawa, it's Business as Usual.

Have a good one,

-Bill

Ottawa LRT: Everybody Off!

Good grief, enough, already!

Ottawa's Light Rail Transit has been a total disaster from the get-go. The list is monstrous:

- Train doors jam on a daily basis

- Switching hardware and computers fail regularly

- Stations are overcrowded

- Bad smells at some stations

- Slippery steps at others

- The system grinds to a halt at least once a day.

Sadly, this is going to end in tragedy.

What happens during an LRT shutdown?

When the LRT shuts down--an almost-daily occurrence in Ottawa right now, the trains arrive at their next stops and empty out. These spills crowds of hundreds of people, who then collide with crowds incoming. All rapidly flow outside, to the bus compound.

Now, OC Transpo have really mastered the 'R1' bus transition. That's when replacement buses cover the same basic route as the LRT. Within minutes, R1s are rolling.

But in the meantime, as more and more passengers arrive at the station, the bus compound fills to overflowing. People have no choice but to step out into the roadway in order to get somewhere.

The backlog quickly fills the station, as more and more incoming buses arrive and deposit passengers, in the minutes before the R1 buses are called upon.

Eventually, the whole thing becomes so crowded that you can't move. People spill onto random buses in an attempt to flee the crowds. Nearby bus stops become crowded with refugees.

The point that nobody seems to be making is that we're describing a death trap.

That's right. If I were a terrorist, or someone with something to prove, I'd strike Tunney's Pasture station during an LRT outage. People are absolutely trapped. And I'd bet you could get something going with a simple pocket lighter.

Before (hopefully) it comes to that, the City will have the presence of mind to stop the nonsense, now. The LRT is not working as advertised--not even close.  It's dangerous, and you are giving your riders no choice in the matter. Someone is going to be hurt--and the blame will lie solely at our City Mothers' feet.

Where is the RTG, Anyway?

Which brings us to another point. The Rideau Transit Group--the bunch of turkeys who designed and built the initial segment of the LRT--Phase One, as it's called--seem to be puckered up more tightly than a sphincter during a Mexican vacation. Various companies have come forward, claiming large amounts of monies owed. The City is getting nowhere in its complaints.

Need I remind you that these same turkeys, who have delivered a system that does not work; who seem to be out of money and out of answers, already have the nod for Phases Two and Three?

Clearly, something has to change--fast.

The City needs to shut down the LRT--right now. There should be no debate; it's a question of rider safety. As I understand it, RTG was to have delivered a system that worked. Therefore, shut it down, fix the problems with the hardware; have the manufacturer redesign the doors so that they are not so easily jammed; and fix the problems with the stations, most immediately the size of the bus compounds, so that there is no more dangerous overcrowding. Test it thoroughly next time--two weeks  of nonstop operation, with testers doing whatever they can to halt the ting. This must be done before any work can continue on Phases Two and Three. If that puts RTG behind schedule, well, that's their lookout.

But so far, that's not happening. The Mayor continues to attend photo-ops and promises 'relief buses'; only OC Transpo, in its hubris, had already sold off a huge fleet and as a result has to go begging. Well, too bad; buy 'em new, and charge 'em to the RTG.

This whole thing stinks to the core, and by the end of it you know that the Ottawa taxpayer will foot the bill.

It's well past time for for action. You're putting people into grave danger. Mister Mayor, I'm addressing you. Time to grow a pair, Yerhonner.

-Bill

DX'ing Revisited

Once again, I'm trying to get readers interested in DX'ing--trying to receive radio stations over long distances.

Equipment

At its base, DX'ing requires a radio of some sort. I tend to focus on AM radio, as do many others. In the United States, southern Canada, and across Europe, the nighttime dial comes alive with stations near and distant, and DX opportunities abound.

Your receiver should make it fairly easy to determine the frequency to which you are tuned. As such, digital receivers are best; but at night, it's usually possible to keep track from a reference station, as virtually every frequency has a station at night. Good-quality audio, and especially bass and treble  controls, as important.

The radio should be fairly directional, and have good adjacent-channel rejection. I.e.: tune away from a strong local station, and the noise associated with it should quickly disappear.

Other controls, such as sideband, BFO, or VFO tend to be of limited use in the AM band.

It helps to have a logbook or logsheets handy, so you can record your catches. You'll probably want to record the date and time; the frequency and callsign of the station; and any notes about its reception, the type of programming, network affiliation, etc.

When starting a DX session, either go to a strong local station first, to get your bearings, or just tune in to a frequency. If you hear a signal, try rotating your radio for strongest reception. Oftentimes you will hear more than one station, and often you can vary the rotation of the radio to favour one over the other.

Patience is a good watchword, here. Stations tend to fade in and out, and often exhibit fluttering of the signal.

Identifying a station can take some time. You'll find that, frustratingly, signals tend to fade out just when they're identifying. It happens enough that my partner has noticed it, also. Many stations air network programming and identify just once per hour--or even less.

The golden time for DX'ers is at the top of the hour, when stations tend to pause their programming, air some commercials and news bulletins, and often identify.

Every station is assigned a callsign, consisting of from three to five letters. What you'll hear depends upon your location:

Canada: CBxx, CFxx-CKxx
USA (West of the Mississippi): Kxxx
USA (East of the Mississippi): Wxxx
Mexico: XExxx
Cuba: CMxx

It helps to get into the habit of listening for four letters in a jumble of noise. Beware that what you hear may not be what has been uttered; check your station lists carefully.

There are other ways in which you can identify a station. Local advertisements often mention business names that can be Googled; or localities. Phone numbers are a great one.

The type of programming can be a help, too. Most radio resources carry notes about the type of programming. Sports, for example; or News/Talk. If you're hearing a sports event, network talk or religious programming, or music, chances are that you won't get an identification apart from at the top of the hour. Put a pin in that one, and come back to it.

The language can be an important indicator. If it's french, for example, then the station is probably in Quebec. Other languages can often help to narrow it down, with the assistance of your references.

As for resources, they are numerous. I know that the National Radio Club, in the United States, publishes an annual guide to stations in North America. I find myself, these days, turning more and more to MWList, a fantastic worldwide resource. It can be found at https://www.mwlist.org/ul_login.php.

From time to time, you'll want to mine the graveyard frequencies (1230, 1240, 1340, 1400, 1450 and 1490 in North America). They usually are just a jumble of hundreds of stations, churning furiously; but every now and then, one station will pop through just long enough to identify. Often you'll catch new stations in bunches.

If you do get into DX'ing, tracking your finds can become important. I have used a spreadsheet for the past twenty years. I'm now hard at work developing a program to automate it all; it's coming along and should be available for release near the end of this year.

The nice thing about DX'ing is that whether you've got five minutes, or two hours, you can just do it.

Happy DX'ing!

-Bill

Bill's Rules for Adjusting to the Time Change:

Here it is. It takes me about one day to adapt to a time change. I've had plenty of practice: 110 times in my life. That should be enough for anybody.

Rule 1: Practice

Humans are creatures of habit, very easily trained. We want to go to sleep at the same hour every night; wake up at the same time in the morning. Well, I do it a bit differently.

Quite often, I'll head to bed a half-hour to an hour later than usual. But--and here is the catch--I'm up around the same time every morning (from 4:15 to 5:00). That leaves me a little tired. One of the first things I do upon getting up is to look at a clock. Whatever time the clock says it is, that's the time I accept. I do other things, too--vary my eating times, etc. It keeps the schedule fluid and makes you more adaptable to change. I'm up at about the same time on weekends, too; I love it.

It helps if you have a late-night hobby that can distract you. Me, I do DX'ing--listening for AM radio stations at great distances, at night. It's a low-energy hobby, but quite engaging; and, at least in this household, it's become a spectator sport; Tonia loves listening in as I ply the dial. She's begun making log entries for me (that's exciting). The benefit is that my logs are now human-readable. She's beginning to understand the vagaries of signal propagation and probably sharpening her hearing. It's a win-win.

Rule 2: Preparation

Whenever a time change is upon us, I stay up later. That means I'll be still a bit tired when I wake up. That makes it easier to make the change. Again, just accepting what the clock says is a big deal. Here, it's six o'clock in the morning. Yesterday, it would have been seven o'clock. Doesn't matter--the clock says it's six, and that's what I'm going by.

In my experience, there are two daily events that you should try to avoid in the first couple of days following a time change: sunrise and sunset. They are the major arbiters of your perception of time and can reset your circadian clock (your body's internal clock). Try to avoid looking outside from six to eight in the morning, and from four to six in the evening. Big help; take it from me.

Rule 3: Acceptance

I remember, back in my childhood, constantly translating the time during the day. I'd say, okay, it's ten o'clock now; but yesterday this would have been eleven o'clock. No wonder I'm hungry.

Now I say, hey, look, it's getting dark early, and I'm not hungry yet. Oh well.

Again, the most important thing you can do is to learn just to accept what the clock says. Do that, and you've half the battle won!

-Bill

Coming Unsprung

It's time for the twice-annual whine: "I can't handle this spring-forward/fall-back thing. Why can't they leave the clock alone?"

First of all, I can sympathize that time changes are difficult to master. I remember, as a child, how it took days before my internal systems would adjust. Nowadays? Well, after about thirty-five years of accepting the time on the clock, I'm pretty much immune. I get up when I get up, and whatever is the time on the clock, okay by me. Note: it's always early (before six).

What people don't seem to understand, or perhaps appreciate, are the benefits of daylight savings time. Ask yourself: would you rather have a summer where the rising sun was in your eyes at four in the morning; where the sun set, and the evening was over, at eight o'clock?

Daylight savings time was designed to take advantage of the shift in sunrise over the summer months; and in the summer, people rising at six in the morning often lamented the fact that the sun had been up a couple hours before them; why not shift an hour, and enjoy an extra hour of sun in the evening?

Then there are the economic arguments; by shifting people's hours to something a bit more in line with the sun, less lighting is used in a day; that all adds up.

I suppose, these days, people just don't really notice what's going on outside, anyway; dark or light, rain or shine or snow; it just doesn't matter to them. Getting dark? Just flick on the lights and get back to binge-watching Lucifer; and maybe throw on a sweater for the walk out to the garage.

Well, you may not like making the adjustment, but I'll bet you anything that you'll be less happy that it'll cost you, and considerably.

It'll cost you for an extra hour of lighting, every single evening from March to November; for extending your activities deeper into the 'evening.' Your schedule, if you're an outdoorist, will also grow more cramped, as you frantically try to pack an evening's worth of activities into the couple hours between dinner and sunset.

Time to stop and really think about what you're ready to give up, people!

Light Rail in Ottawa: an Unmitigated Fail

Yes, you heard me.

Ottawa's light rail finally began rolling mid-September, after two years of delays for which the manufacturer was penalized... a whole million dollars (that's practically scot-free for a $3-billion project.)

One of the many stipulations that the City of Ottawa insisted upon (and upon which it later caved, as municipal elections loomed) was that the operator had to demonstrate twelve days' consecutive flawless operation of the line, before handing the keys over to the City. Of course, we now know that this didn't happen.

The construction project was accompanied by unprecedented congestion, as vastly more vehicles fought over significantly less road space. No problem, promised John Manconi, OC Transpo head; rail will solve everything.

It came out, long before the line opened, that the contractor had failed many of the technical requirements; yet was still allowed to proceed. How very Ottawan a way of doing business!

In its first three weeks of operation, the new light-rail line has been plagued with outages; computer glitches, power failures, trains grinding to a halt because the doors jammed, because people were holding them open to exit the train, because they were not staying open for a reasonable amount of time. Now the proposed solution is to 'isolate' the door and carry on. I know that if I'm ever on a train, and that happens, that I need to get close to a working door--and quickly.

So, about that congestion? Well, in hindsight, it's little surprise, but people immediately noticed the reduced traffic downtown and resumed driving to work. It's already just as congested as before the train. The remaining surface buses downtown face exactly the same kinds of delays as before. So much for that promise.

And what about at other points along the line? Especially in the west end, where the line has been jammed right up against the Ottawa River? Well, that's causing its own kind of congestion, especially around Tunney's Pasture, the current end of the line. When the system ain't working, the nearby streets are flooded with people; and with buses suddenly expected to carry on along their old routes. Lately, that's on a daily basis. Man, I'd love to have the budget to set up a chip truck nearby.

Other problems bubbling up: insufficient service from the existing trains. Long waits for buses at the ends of the line. Construction carrying on well after the line is 'done.' Overcrowding in bus compounds (especially at Tunney's, where hundreds of people can be trapped inside the station building when there's a problem). Despite the City's endless bragging that the new line is 'fast,' the average commute time has been lengthened by 15-20 minutes (more if you live way out). Down in Barrhaven, where the buses are always late and often cancelled; and where it took the better part of an hour to get downtown before the train, they're about to have a revolution!

I find it endlessly frustrating that the people who control the purse-strings of the transit system; and, indeed, the people who manage it, haven't ridden a bus since their teens (except when it has been politically expedient for them to do so--on a hand-picked, private bus). Well, after years of endless excuses, endless promises, and endless bold statements that this and that are being done to address problems--only to have the same problems crop up again, day after day--I can only say this:

John Manconi must go. He is completely out of touch with his customers. He is arrogant and condescending. And, mostly, he makes endless empty promises (to be fair, he did give up for a while and basically say "Suck it up" to his customers--people with no other options for transport). He has got to go; and his replacement _must_ use public transit to get to and from work. She must have a feel for the health of the system she is controlling; for the 'user experience'. Manconi wouldn't step near a bus other than to kick it. Have we learned nothing from decades of out-of-touch managers?

Jim Watson must go. He pinned his entire career on light rail. Hey, it was a gamble--and he lost. I will forever remember the Watson years for their Toronto-style vehicular congestion, and Watson beaming through one staged light-rail event after another. Well, Jim, after two years of empty promises, it's time to pay the piper. If light rail doesn't cost you your job, then I give up on this city.

There's one other part that must go--that must never be considered for another light-rail contract. That would be the Rideau Transit Group, a consortium thrown together for the express purpose of fleecing Ottawa for every last penny building the Ottawa line. Well, I don't think I really need to say anything; but for you out-of-town readers, a trip down memory lane yields the multiple sinkholes that delayed construction for months; the multiple times they promised that everything would be done in a month or two; The near-useless equipment (ie: trains with EZ-Jam doors), untested and built in a warm European climate; the claim that they were 'finished' back in (May? June? Months before it was actually finished--which it still isn't--not really). And, of course, the fact that they couldn't run empty trains on an operational schedule for twelve days, as originally required).  RTG, you're like a worn-out record (vinyl platters; predated tape recording). I (and, I suspect, most other educated Ottawans) don't believe a thing you say anymore. Piss off.

Back some years ago, OC had purchased buses built in California. They were nice; but in the winter they were awful. Salt got in between the windows and into the interior of the bus. They were not made to withstand Canadian winters. I don't think any of those buses is on the road today--maybe ten, twelve years later (buses often last 20).

My final word: winter is coming; and here we go again. If you think the LRT system has had woes so far, then you ain't seen nothin' yet!

-Bill