Microwaves, Cordless Phones, Remotes and 802.11g WiFi Networks

Microwaves, Cordless Phones, Remotes and 802.11g WiFi Networks: what do they have in common? They’re not all wireless (well, my nuker ain’t, at any rate!), and they don’t all need to be plugged into the wall (my remotes don’t, as well).

So? Got you stumped, have I?

What they all have in common is that they all use the 2.4GHz spectrum, as a general rule. Here, have a pretty picture:

Something's going to go wrong here: the nuker, cordless phone and router all use the 2.4GHz spectrum!

(You can click it for biggerness. I apologize for the crudity, but I only have paint on Vist, the computer I’m using.)

There’s no remote in the picture, but there we go.

Now, lots of cordless phones use the 2.4GHz frequency. Not all of them do: recent Panasonic phones either use the 1.8GHz frequency or 5.4GHz. Older ones will use 700MHz, as well as some cheaper ones. The simple solution to this is to make sure that you buy a WiFi friendly phone.

802.11g networks and microwaves use the 2.4GHz frequency, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Remotes are a different thing. All remotes are different: they all transmit different codes to tell them different things. For instance, a Sony TV remote will generally not work with a Panasonic one (And if it does, it will no doubt do the wrong thing when you tell it to do something).

Now, the picture. In this case, this person is nuking their leftover chicken, recieving a phonecall on their cordless phone and doing something with an 802.11g network. All these things use the 2.4GHz frequency. There is only room for one device to do something.

The microwave is a dumb machine. It will continue, but it will just spin and you’ll still have cold chicken (Not that I would complain. I love cold food!). The cordless phone is smart: it will attempt to use a different channel. And the WiFi will try to do so, too.

But what if you live in a house with several cordless phones and with a few 802.11g networks around? There might not be enough channels. In this case, it’s “first come, first served”.

(Another thing which uses the 2.4GHz spectrum is Bluetooth, but I can’t be bothered getting into that)

EDIT: After much researching, I’ve found that there are a whopping great three channels in the 2.4GHz spectrum, which is a bit silly, because it’s an unrestricted channel, meaning anyone can use it for anything, as opposed to a channel used by an airport, which if you listen in to, is generally frowned upon and the AFP or FBI or whoever will come knocking on your door and will arrest you on terrorism charges.

Random Library Funniness

Well, I had Work Experience at the public library this week. It was good fun: the people were nice, the work challenging, and it was just good fun. Alas, it had come to an end, but I did find some funny things. For instance, you know these little stickers along the sides of books with the call number? Well, I have a photo on my phone of one that, well, is a smidgen inappropriate, but funny nonetheless.

And another thing: I noticed that, especially in the large print Romance section, there are a lot of those call number things with the word BRA on them. Suspiscious, eh?

During the times I was on the front counter, I got bored, and punched my friends into Spydus (the program they use to track people and the books and things they borrow). Some of them are incredibly naughty. For instance, my sister has a charges over AU$100 on her card. One of my mates, not so naughty: ten overdue items. Then there’s another mate of mine, the perfect angel: nothing on loan, nothing overdue. Although he had one trap, which is where they send a threatening letter to you demanding payment (I’ve had three).

It was a great week, and I’ll upload that, well, not so appropriate call number photo, which is rather amusing, up soon.

And here’s that picture!

The inappropriate Call Number: A - CUM - J

The Tuesday Link: The Thingy and the Thingies

Linky.

You’ll like it, it’s an amusing story. And there’s more where that came from! Have a look around that site, it’s good fun.

Four Day Weekend, or Life is Not Sweet

Well, we’ve gone from one extreme to another — last time it was a one-day weekend, and now I’ve had a four-day weekend. I had Friday off, and today is Her Majesty’s Birthday. Hopefully, she got some nice presents.

So, Friday I went down town, hit the Public Library for the internet, and my mate turned up. So I had a good day there. We insulted each other via BabelFish. It was muchly fun.

Then I wandered around town for a while, and caught a bus home, then wanted naptime. But that had to wait until the evening, because I can only sleep during the day when a) I’m sicker than I normally get (which isn’t hard: I don’t get sick often, but when I do, I get sick bad!) and b) It’s around 4-5pm and c) I’ve no energy.

Don’t critisize my over-zealous and-ing. Just, don’t.

On Saturday and Sunday, it was your standard mope around at home, watch TV, etc., etc.

Today, it was “Woohoo! I’ve got the house to myself for a bit this morning!” This entailed watching all my favourite TV programs that I’d recorded, having a late breakfast of Vegemite on Well-Buttered toast, and, most importantly, sitting down on the computer, music on full-bore with no headphones. Life is sweet. Then everyone came home, so I had to help bring in the groceries, and resume my computering, still in my pyjamas, but with headphones on.

Life is not sweet anymore.

On the upside, it’s about ten past eleven, and I am still, yes, still, in my pyjamas.

At least I’ve got my pants on right-side-out today.

One-Day Weekend

So, basically, this weekend has been a one-day weekend for me. Today, I got up at around nine, watched my morning Star Trek (don’t laugh), had breakfast, and then at 11:30 had to clear off for 5 hours of rehearsals at school for our musical. Not fun, but it’s over now.

We’re doing High School Musical On Stage, and we’ve been working hard. I’m a generic person, a Brainiac to be more precise (you know, part of Taylor’s gang of hooligans, right?). I was away for one session, so I missed out on half a dance, and as a consequence am only in half of it.

So, yeah. I’m a bit snarky now. Deal with it.

Douglas

Hello Random friends!

Well, hello my random friends! Here is my new random blog, where I’ll post whatever, whenever. So, if I don’t update for a month, don’t fret.

Anyway, just thought I would say Hi. Hello!