Extras - A Page of Miscellany

Odds and Ends
Darren at the DeskAll manner of odds and ends here. The weather, a temperature calculator, Barnsley's Tuscan hills, Cheese and Dunkers, a potted history of UK tv, webcams. This first batch of links go to pages on this website:

Public Service:

Penistone home-made weather stationWeather Forecasts:
The weather is always a good conversation starter in the UK. Check it here.

Temperature Converter
Enter a number in either field, then click outside the text box for a result. The UK mostly uses the Celcius scale.

C°: 
F°: 

Old Rope
This Penistone do-it-yourself weather station can quickly be made by anyone, with just a small rock and a piece of string. Fasten it to the nearest tree and read the instructions. Old people might use aches and pains to reach the same conclusions. My nose end tells me when it is cold.

Cheese
Cracking toast, Gromit, but where's the cheese. Good cheese is a real treat. English cheese is excellent. Cheddar, Cheshire, Wensleydale, crumbly Lancashire, double Gloucester, etc., are all named after UK place-names. Other countries salute this by trying to make their own versions, with varying degrees of success. The US adds to this melee with Kraft yellow goo slices, ideally suited for junk food.

Cheese & biscuits - Not clickable

Tea and Dunkers
The perfect partner for cheese; biscuits and cakes. I bought the book too.
http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com

Barnsley goes Tuscan
Speaking of cheese, Barnsley Chronicle revealed that BMBC asked consultants to reshape Barnsley in the style of a Tuscan village, with some sort of halo light show. Barnsley is directly under the UK's main north-south air route and they have a programme of replacing street lights with newer types for lower light pollution.

Tuscany - not clickable tuscany - not clickable

Here are two views from Tuscany, clearly showing how similar it is to Barnsley. We will be able to marvel at Barnsley's Tuscan pavement cafes and tattooed lager drinkers reciting poetry in the rain. Since the Leaning Tower of Pisa is in Tuscany, could Barnsley town hall develop a lean?

UK Television
The world's first public TV service started in London in 1936, from Alexandra Palace, using 405-line electronically scanned pictures. They called it 'high-definition' at the time. There were only a few thousand viewers when it had to close down for WW2 in 1939. They couldn't leave such a useful transmitter on the air as it would have been invaluable for enemy aircraft navigation. When the service restarted in 1945, many of the old TV sets wouldn't work any more as their electrolytic capacitors had dried out. They went 'pop'.

Colour tv started in the UK around 1966 on the 625/25 PAL system on UHF channels (still in use) but we are now moving towards a digital terrestrial system, transmitted in between the analogue channels but on lower power of about 10kW. Now we have many more channels and a bunch of radio stations on our TVs. When the old channels go off the air, the new digital ones will go on to higher power.

The old Band II (ex 405-line ITV) around 200MHz is now being used for DAB digital radio. I'd say that the best choice now (2010) is Freesat, with lots of channels, no subscription, HD TV on a couple of channels, lots of radio stations and a few foreign channels but a dish is more of a job to install than an aerial. BBC HD channel is also on terrestrial TV, using a normal aeria,l but you need a special set-top box as there are only a few (big-screen and expensive) TVs coming out with it built-in.

Emley Moor MastAnalogue TV Shutdown
Before you read on, have a look at the history of the Emley Moor mast. Analogue TV transmissions in the UK will dry up between 2011 and 2013, as we go digital. You can stack up more digital channels into a given bandwidth and at lower transmitter power, to release spectrum for other (more lucrative) purposes. Digital TV is far more bandwidth efficient than analogue but it is not quite so 'pure'. Various compression tricks are employed to squeeze it in and sometimes these are visible on the screen. Shutdown info: http://www.ukfree.tv/shutdowndetail.php?tx=SE222128

Free to Air Satellite
With a cheap satellite kit you can see good tv pictures, even in Millhouse Green. Maplin Electronics sell a complete satellite kit for caravanners for loads of Freesat and non-Freesat channels (including every BBC and ITV region) for about £80. It works well and the dish can be wall-mounted or stuck to a railing or a flat surface. 'Hotbird' satellite carries 700+ channels from all over the world, including BBC World, and some very dour ones from Arabic countries with over-modulated sound and mind-numbing echo. There are also plenty of 'artistic' ladies too, who would like you to call them for a natter about this and that. Mostly that. Maplins also sell a complete High Definition kit - dish cable and receiver for about £150.

Please note that the Webcam section has been removed because nearly all the links had either stopped working or their webpage images weren't being refreshed.

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