Amazing Russian space history photo archive
Jim Oberg
http://rgantd.ru/vzal/korolev/razdel6.htm
full of extraordinary photographs from Korolev's work
on the space program -- many scenes I have never
seen before.
Pat Flannery
Jim Oberg wrote:
> I've just come across this Russian archive:
> http://rgantd.ru/vzal/korolev/razdel6.htm
>
Interesting cutaways of Sputnik 1 and 3.
Is this some sort of space station?:
http://rgantd.ru/vzal/korolev/pics/013_035.jpg
That's the first time I've seen an escape tower _inside_ of a launch
fairing.
Or is that its retro motor?
Pat
Pat Flannery
Rusty wrote:
>
> "A little bit to the left, no back...THERE! Now don't move, the
> picture is fine."
>
> Look at that clunky commie rabbit-ear TV antenna technology.
> When I was a kid, ours was small enough to fit on top of the TV set.
>
Comrade! Is clever trick to mislead capitalist powers!
That is not little Sputnik, is ball bearing from mighty Soviet Volga
hydroelectric dam complex!.
Shortly after photo taken, those men with crowbars tipped it off stool,
and it rolled over Khrushchev's foot!
Comrade K began to rethink virtues of hydroelectric power, decided
nuclear power safer, so signed construction order for Mighty Chernobyl
Atom-Plant that very afternoon from his hospital bed! :-)
Pat
Rupert Goodwins
> Rusty wrote:
>
> > "A little bit to the left, no back...THERE! Now don't move, the
> > picture is fine."
>
> > Look at that clunky commie rabbit-ear TV antenna technology.
> > When I was a kid, ours was small enough to fit on top of the TV set.
>
>
Are there any technical details about the Sputnik 1 transmitter? The
frequencies are easily found, but I've never seen a discussion of the
electronics. The back-up that was sold had the radio removed, I
believe.
Rupert
Pat Flannery
Rupert Goodwins wrote:
> Are there any technical details about the Sputnik 1 transmitter? The
> frequencies are easily found, but I've never seen a discussion of the
> electronics. The back-up that was sold had the radio removed, I
> believe.
>
There are photos and drawings of its interior:
http://rgantd.ru/vzal/korolev/pics/015_004.jpg
http://rgantd.ru/vzal/korolev/pics/015_005.jpg
http://rgantd.ru/vzal/korolev/pics/015_008.jpg
http://rgantd.ru/vzal/korolev/pics/015_009.jpg
Pat
OM
wrote:
>There are photos and drawings of ]Sputnik I's] interior:
>http://rgantd.ru/vzal/korolev/pics/015_004.jpg
...That drawing does something that not even Mark Wade's site manages
to do: put the sheer *lack* of size of Sputnik into perspective, which
in turn shows just how easy it was for the next two Sputniks -
especially Sputnik III - to get lobbed. The big downplay over the
Sputnik scare was "hey, all they can do is toss a basketball over the
fence! Wby be scared of that?", but Sputnik III blew that argument out
of the water allright.
OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[
Rupert Goodwins
Good new pictures. But I can't find any block diagrams, circuits or
specifications for the transmitter, for example, or for the science
package beyond a very high level description.
I doubt there's anything particularly unexpected - the state of
electronics in 1957 is well documented and entirely up to the job -
but I'm surprised that for something so intensely iconic this
information isn't around.
Rupert
neil....@gmail.com
> Are there any technical details about the Sputnik 1 transmitter? The
> frequencies are easily found, but I've never seen a discussion of the
> electronics. The back-up that was sold had the radio removed, I
> believe.
The main feature was that Sputnik was pressurized. So its electronics
would operate and be cooled in similar way to electronics on Earth.
That's why Sputnik was a sphere.
This was a continuing theme with Soviet spacecraft, they were usually
pressurized, which made them difficult to scale. By contrast,
American spacecraft were usually open to the vacuum.
Pat Flannery
OM wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Feb 2007 02:39:39 -0600, Pat Flannery <fla...@daktel.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>> There are photos and drawings of ]Sputnik I's] interior:
>> http://rgantd.ru/vzal/korolev/pics/015_004.jpg
>>
>
> ...That drawing does something that not even Mark Wade's site manages
> to do: put the sheer *lack* of size of Sputnik into perspective, which
> in turn shows just how easy it was for the next two Sputniks -
> especially Sputnik III - to get lobbed. The big downplay over the
> Sputnik scare was "hey, all they can do is toss a basketball over the
> fence! Wby be scared of that?", but Sputnik III blew that argument out
> of the water allright.
>
There's cutaways of that one on the page also:
http://rgantd.ru/vzal/korolev/pics/016_005.jpg
http://rgantd.ru/vzal/korolev/pics/016_006.jpg
http://rgantd.ru/vzal/korolev/pics/016_008.jpg
When I was a kid, I had a book about space exploration that showed
Vostok as a manned Sputnik 3; looking at the size of the thing you can
see why that might be a sensible supposition; it looks like a Soviet
copy of a Mercury design:
http://rgantd.ru/vzal/korolev/pics/016_004.jpg
And the weight's almost exactly the same also.
Pat
Pat
Pat Flannery
neil....@gmail.com wrote:
>
> This was a continuing theme with Soviet spacecraft, they were usually
> pressurized, which made them difficult to scale. By contrast,
> American spacecraft were usually open to the vacuum.
>
And besides being heavy, that approach screwed up royally on their Mars
probes, which would depressurize and overheat before they got there.
Still, since they were using vacuum tubes, they didn't have much choice.
It also meant on Voskhod they needed an airlock rather than simply
depressurizing the spacecraft, Gemini style.
Their usual pressurant gas for the electronics compartments was helium.
Pat
Pat Flannery
Rusty wrote:
>
> Switch to scene of a Soviet space technicians standing at banks of
> tube testers, testing away and speaking with squeaky helium voices.
>
> Can you say Monty Python?
>
Long time back, after Apollo 11, the Soviets did a odd triple Soyuz
flight that baffled everyone as it seemed to have no real purpose.
The plan a been to have two of the Soyuz dock and the crew EVA from one
to the other while the whole thing was photographed by the third Soyuz.
(Soyuz 6,7,8)
Originally, the Soyuz docking radar electronics were carried in a
toroidal tank at the base of the equipment module that as jettisoned
after docking occurred:
http://www.spaceinminiature.com/ref/soviet/sov_img/under.jpg
This was filled with helium and had fans to move it around for cooling.
Unfortunately before the triple flight they went to test the tank's
helium supply out and managed to damage the electronics on all three
spacecraft (I don't know if the helium escaped or if they
overpressurized it and imploded the vacuum tubes)
So they couldn't do the docking experiment. I'd hate to be the person
responsible for this flub; under Stalin he would have been shot. :-)
Pat
OM
wrote:
>Can you say Monty Python?
"...Da! Your father slept with cossacks, and your mother smelt of
bathtub vodak with ring still around tub!"
Henry Spencer
Pat Flannery <fla...@daktel.com> wrote:
>Is this some sort of space station?:
>http://rgantd.ru/vzal/korolev/pics/013_035.jpg
No, that's one of the TMK -- Heavy Interplanetary Ship -- concepts, meant
for a manned Mars flyby. (Siddiqi's book discusses it briefly; it may have
been the mission that fixed the payload mass of the N1.)
There were notions of using a similar design for a LEO space station.
>That's the first time I've seen an escape tower _inside_ of a launch
>fairing.
>Or is that its retro motor?
No, it would have to be an escape tower, I think. Note that it's not
present in the in-flight configurations.
Pity they didn't use a bit higher resolution, to make the labels readable.
(Not that I can read much Russian, but once you know the alphabet, a lot
of the technical words are recognizable as Western borrowings.)
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | he...@spsystems.net
Jim Oberg
Remarkable story, is there a citation to an original source?
I'd never heard it.
"Pat Flannery" <fla...@daktel.com> wrote in message
news:12tgo97...@corp.supernews.com...
Pat Flannery
Jim Oberg wrote:
> Remarkable story, is there a citation to an original source?
> I'd never heard it.
>
>
>
>
>
http://www.astronautix.com/flights/soyuz6.htm
It really would have been something to see if it had worked correctly.
Like I said, I'd hate to be whoever was responsible for screwing up the
pressure test.
To make a mistake that leads to one mission failing is bad; to do
something that screws up three at once would be a "not even going to be
a wet spot left" moment.
Pat
robert casey
> And besides being heavy, that approach screwed up royally on their Mars
> probes, which would depressurize and overheat before they got there.
> Still, since they were using vacuum tubes, they didn't have much choice.
If those probes were to say in space in orbit of Mars, the Russians
could have just built the tubes with no glass envelopes. Interplanetary
space has vacuum a lot harder than anything we can pump here on Earth.
The downside is that the tubes' cathodes would have to be "cooked" once
up in space, and then if there are any defects it's too late... No real
way to test on the ground.
Pat Flannery
robert casey wrote:
>
> If those probes were to say in space in orbit of Mars, the Russians
> could have just built the tubes with no glass envelopes.
> Interplanetary space has vacuum a lot harder than anything we can pump
> here on Earth.
To save costs, a lot of their spacecraft were made out of standardized
components put together in different ways. Sort of a Lego-block approach
to space exploration.
One of the classic stories about the convoluted nature of Soviet science
were some of our physicists who went to have a peek at Russian high
energy research after the end of the cold war.
They noticed the Russians were using these beautifully handmade brass
screw clamps to hold wiring in place on their experimental apparatus.
Curious about why they were doing this, one of them asked what it was
all about; why not just secure the wiring down with electric tape, like
was done in the U.S.?
"Because the government wouldn't requisition us any electric tape, so we
had to make those instead."
Want to build a space probe? Good, there's a whole box of government
supplied vacuum tubes right over there. Have fun. :-)
Think how much weight that pressurized approach added to their
spacecraft though.
For being the nation of revolutionaries they sure had reactionary
spacecraft designers.
Pat
OM
wrote:
>Want to build a space probe? Good, there's a whole box of government
>supplied vacuum tubes right over there. Have fun. :-)
...The punch line? Name the one country that still produces tubes in
mass quantity, and of a quality that's actually superior to those
produced in the US.
Pat Flannery
OM wrote:
> ...The punch line? Name the one country that still produces tubes in
> mass quantity, and of a quality that's actually superior to those
> produced in the US.
>
The "Virgin Commies", right?
All direct copies of our standard vacuum tubes, and even capable of
fitting in the same sockets.
There was supposed to be some Soyuz flight where it got shook up enough
during ascent that some of the tubes broke, and they had to make an
emergency return fairly shortly.
This was also the flight that the wonderus flight event sequencer broke
on. A large version of a music box cylinder whose pegs activated
electrical switches rather than plucked a steel soundboard.
Pat
Henry Spencer
robert casey <wa2...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>If those probes were to say in space in orbit of Mars, the Russians
>could have just built the tubes with no glass envelopes. Interplanetary
>space has vacuum a lot harder than anything we can pump here on Earth.
Unfortunately, they'd still generate a lot of heat, and that's rather
harder to get rid of in vacuum. The whole point of the pressurized
enclosures is easier cooling.
Henry Spencer
Pat Flannery <fla...@daktel.com> wrote:
>Think how much weight that pressurized approach added to their
>spacecraft though.
They had the big rockets to launch it with... and it does make the thermal
design a whole lot simpler, especially with old high-power electronics.
The price is not so much mass, but the fact that your electronics die if
the housing loses pressure.
(And while Western designers don't go in for putting the whole electronics
box in a pressure hull, it's not that rare for them to have pressurized
housings for specific items.)
>For being the nation of revolutionaries they sure had reactionary
>spacecraft designers.
You want to see reactionary, check out some of the management at JPL. :-)
The only reason Galileo's imager used a CCD was that JPL's favorite imaging
tubes were no longer in production... And even propulsion-intensive
missions like Cassini are still mostly using 1950s propulsion technology.
Henry Spencer
Jim Oberg <job...@houston.rr.com> wrote:
>> Unfortunately before the triple flight they went to test the tank's helium
>> So they couldn't do the docking experiment...
>
>Remarkable story, is there a citation to an original source?
>I'd never heard it.
Siddiqi, page 711: "A thorough investigation that took three months
proved that the failure in the Igla system had been caused by errors in
ground preparations. When the Scientific-Research Institute for Precision
Instruments had tested Igla on the ground for pressurization, engineers
had used a 95-percent helium mixture. Investigators later discovered that
this particular mixture harmed the radio components and thermostats of the
flight units. After two more instruments from the same institute had
failed in orbit by the end of 1969, engineers changed the mixture to
either inert gases or a 5-percent helium solution.(40)"
Reference 40 is "Yu. A. Mozzhorin, et al, eds, Dorogi v kosmos: II
(Moscow: MAI, 1992), pp. 35-36."
Interesting... The reason you'd want to use helium for leak checks is
that it's so good at slipping out through the tiniest openings that it
makes leaks particularly obvious. One reason why you might not want to
use it in the presence of 1960s-vintage Soviet electronics is that it also
leaks straight *through* glass. (This is one reason why ultra-high-vacuum
system plumbing is always metal, because there's enough helium in the
atmosphere to limit the vacuum that a glass system can reach.) It doesn't
take much helium in a vacuum tube to mess up its operation...
Pat Flannery
Henry Spencer wrote:
> Interesting... The reason you'd want to use helium for leak checks is
> that it's so good at slipping out through the tiniest openings that it
> makes leaks particularly obvious.
I always assumed they used it due the facts that it had:
1.) High chemical inertness.
2.) High thermal conductivity.
But if it could leak right through the glass on vacuum tubes, that would
certainly be a major downside.
If they ended up using a 5% helium mixture, what was the other 95%?
Nitrogen?
And even at 5%, wouldn't you still get migration into vacuum tubes over
time?
I'd always read that pressurization of their electronics compatrments on
operational missions was done via helium, but this calls that into
question, and suggests something like nitrogen was used in-flight instead.
It would certainly be easier to avoid leaks using that.
Pat
Scott Hedrick
> If they ended up using a 5% helium mixture, what was the other 95%?
Not-helium :P
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
"Scott Hedrick" <dinehn...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:mNpCh.28$Gf.8...@news.sisna.com...
I have 30 cents in my pocket in the form of two coins.
One of them is not a quarter.
What are they?
--
Greg Moore
SQL Server DBA Consulting
sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com
Pat Flannery
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
> I have 30 cents in my pocket in the form of two coins.
>
> One of them is not a quarter.
>
> What are they?
>
That's clever.
The one that's not a quarter is a nickel, the _other one_ is a quarter.
Pat
(now to take that Mensa test) ;-)
Henry Spencer
Pat Flannery <fla...@daktel.com> wrote:
>If they ended up using a 5% helium mixture, what was the other 95%?
>Nitrogen?
>And even at 5%, wouldn't you still get migration into vacuum tubes over
>time?
Nitrogen seems a reasonable guess for the rest. Yeah, you'd still get
helium oozing through glass, but at about 1/20th the rate, so the problem
would still exist, but would be more manageable for brief leak tests.
>I'd always read that pressurization of their electronics compatrments on
>operational missions was done via helium, but this calls that into
>question, and suggests something like nitrogen was used in-flight instead.
>It would certainly be easier to avoid leaks using that.
My guess would be nitrogen. A quick look doesn't find a definitive
statement.
Jim Oberg
"Henry Spencer" <he...@spsystems.net> wrote
> Siddiqi, page 711: "A thorough investigation ...
Henry Spencer
Jim Oberg <job...@houston.rr.com> wrote:
>> ...One reason why you might not want to
>> use it in the presence of 1960s-vintage Soviet electronics is that it also
>> take much helium in a vacuum tube to mess up its operation...
>
Mind you, I don't know for sure that this was the problem, but it's
certainly plausible, and I can't immediately think of any other way that
helium would cause trouble.
Rupert Goodwins
> In article <gL7Ch.3188$_73.1...@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
> robert casey <wa2...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >If those probes were to say in space in orbit of Mars, the Russians
> >could have just built the tubes with no glass envelopes. Interplanetary
> >space has vacuum a lot harder than anything we can pump here on Earth.
>
> Unfortunately, they'd still generate a lot of heat, and that's rather
> harder to get rid of in vacuum. The whole point of the pressurized
> enclosures is easier cooling.
I've been thinking about that. Most tubes (power transmitter finals
excepted) have the electrodes cooled by radiation through vacuum
anyway (thinks happily of running an 807 with the anode cherry-red.
You could get a kilowatt out of one of those, if you kept the
dissipation down), The envelopes need cooling, certainly, but if
there's no envelope...
I always understood the reason that thermionic devices needed to be
encapsulated in space was that even if things are open to space there
are enough charged particles wandering around in the vicinity of the
circuitry, both from the environment and the electronics itself, that
operation could be compromised.
I've been reading up about Soviet solid-state technology, at least
what I can find online. ( sovietcomputing.com is a fascinating browse.
They could and did make good semiconductors. There are mysteries here.
R
> --
> spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
> mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | h...@spsystems.net
Pat Flannery
Henry Spencer wrote:
> Mind you, I don't know for sure that this was the problem, but it's
> certainly plausible, and I can't immediately think of any other way that
> helium would cause trouble.
>
I was thinking they might have overpressurized it (shades of Apollo 1)
to check for leaks at ambient surface pressure, and this could have
caused some of the vacuum tubes to implode, or something in a sealed
metal container to get crushed from the pressure.
What are the electrical arcing properties of helium like?
I dug up some electrical conductivity data on it yesterday, but the
numbers are Greek to me as far as meaning goes.
The report on the flight on Encyclopedia Astronautica seems to hint that
the system worked right when first activated, but failed shortly
thereafter, which sounds like a overheating problem of some sort:
http://www.astronautix.com/details/soy51345.htm
"Orbital manoeuvres for the Soyuz 7-8 docking have proceeded normally.
The automated rendezvous system is supposed to kick in when the
spacecraft are 250 km apart. The plan is that Soyuz 7 and 8 will dock
while Soyuz 6 observes from only 50 m away. However when Soyuz 7 and 8
are only a kilometre apart, the Igla automated docking system fails. The
crews could conduct a manual rendezvous, but the this is not allowed by
the technical flight controller.
After analysis Mishin agrees to the manual docking, but by this time the
spacecraft are 3000 m apart. Mission rules are that no manual docking be
attempted unless the spacecraft are within 1500 m. Shatalov courageously
refuses to violate an instruction to execute an unsafe procedure not
allowed by the rules. By this time the spacecraft's orbits take them out
of the range of tracking stations - the so-called 'deaf' orbits. But the
spacecraft have plenty of propellant left for further attempts at
rendezvous and docking. The weather in the recovery area is bad (stormy,
25-30 m/s wind)."
Pat
Pat Flannery
Rupert Goodwins wrote:
> On Feb 19, 3:43 pm, h...@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer) wrote:
>
>> In article <gL7Ch.3188$_73.1...@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
>> robert casey <wa2...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> If those probes were to say in space in orbit of Mars, the Russians
>>> could have just built the tubes with no glass envelopes. Interplanetary
>>> space has vacuum a lot harder than anything we can pump here on Earth.
>>>
>> Unfortunately, they'd still generate a lot of heat, and that's rather
>> harder to get rid of in vacuum. The whole point of the pressurized
>> enclosures is easier cooling.
>>
>
> I've been thinking about that. Most tubes (power transmitter finals
> excepted) have the electrodes cooled by radiation through vacuum
> anyway (thinks happily of running an 807 with the anode cherry-red.
> You could get a kilowatt out of one of those, if you kept the
> dissipation down), The envelopes need cooling, certainly, but if
> there's no envelope...
>
> I always understood the reason that thermionic devices needed to be
> encapsulated in space was that even if things are open to space there
> are enough charged particles wandering around in the vicinity of the
> circuitry, both from the environment and the electronics itself, that
> operation could be compromised.
>
How about actual molecules from the anode being propelled around in the
area of the tube (or whatever you call it with no cover) and impacting
other things near it?
You've got a really primitive ion engine here.
I remember the grand old days of radios that could dimly illuminate a
room with the reddish glow of all their tubes.
> I've been reading up about Soviet solid-state technology, at least
> what I can find online. ( sovietcomputing.com is a fascinating browse.
> They could and did make good semiconductors. There are mysteries here.
>
There's info on some of their computer's specs in "The Space Station
Handbook" by Cosmos Books.
They are apparently based on analog technology in a lot of cases.
Pat
robert casey
>
>>I'd always read that pressurization of their electronics compatrments on
>>operational missions was done via helium, but this calls that into
>>question, and suggests something like nitrogen was used in-flight instead.
>>It would certainly be easier to avoid leaks using that.
>
>
> My guess would be nitrogen. A quick look doesn't find a definitive
> statement.
Would using an inert gas like argon or neon be better? No chemical
reactions to worry about, and if the pressure's high enough (easy to do,
a major fraction of an atmosphere would do) no neon glow discharging
happening.
Or use a liquid, though that makes for too much weight. And you
probably don't want to use mercury as the liquid for other reasons...
robert casey
>
> I always understood the reason that thermionic devices needed to be
> encapsulated in space was that even if things are open to space there
> are enough charged particles wandering around in the vicinity of the
> circuitry, both from the environment and the electronics itself, that
> operation could be compromised.
>
I suspect it's a more mundane reason why the envelopes on the tubes. So
it can be tested in the lab (that is full of air) on the ground.
Rupert Goodwins
It's nice to think, when you're lounging around watching the TV, that
you're staring down the barrel of a particle accelerator whooshing
electrons up to an appreciable percentage of the speed of light, then
smashing them into a thin layer of toxic phosphor. LCDs just aren't
brutish enough.
> > I've been reading up about Soviet solid-state technology, at least
> > what I can find online. ( sovietcomputing.com is a fascinating browse.
> > They could and did make good semiconductors. There are mysteries here.
>
> There's info on some of their computer's specs in "The Space Station
> Handbook" by Cosmos Books.
> They are apparently based on analog technology in a lot of cases.
>
Some of the station keeping was driven by sequencers - mechanical
devices with rotating cams that triggered various systems - weren't
they? I can just remember the Apollo-Soyuz reporting at the time,
together with some comparisons of the super-duper American tech versus
the clockwork yet devilishly clever Soviet machinery.
Still haven't found a trace of the Sputnik electronics. Having fun
trying, though.
R
> Pat
Herb Schaltegger
(in article <1172012274.2...@k78g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>):
> It's nice to think, when you're lounging around watching the TV, that
> you're staring down the barrel of a particle accelerator whooshing
> electrons up to an appreciable percentage of the speed of light, then
> smashing them into a thin layer of toxic phosphor. LCDs just aren't
> brutish enough.
It's just a tad long, but that's some great .sig fodder. :-)
--
You can run on for a long time,
Sooner or later, God'll cut you down.
~Johnny Cash
Pat Flannery
Rupert Goodwins wrote:
>> There's info on some of their computer's specs in "The Space Station
>> Handbook" by Cosmos Books.
>> They are apparently based on analog technology in a lot of cases.
>>
>>
>
> Some of the station keeping was driven by sequencers - mechanical
> devices with rotating cams that triggered various systems - weren't
> they?
That's what I read somewhere, but I can't track it down.
Did you know that the Argon 16 computer on a Soyuz TM weighs 83 kilograms?
Pat
Pat Flannery
Herb Schaltegger wrote:
>
>> It's nice to think, when you're lounging around watching the TV, that
>> you're staring down the barrel of a particle accelerator whooshing
>> electrons up to an appreciable percentage of the speed of light, then
>> smashing them into a thin layer of toxic phosphor. LCDs just aren't
>> brutish enough.
>>
>
> It's just a tad long, but that's some great .sig fodder. :-)
>
I noticed an odd heating effect when working in the back of tube-driven TVs.
Did those things turn out microwaves?
The radiation shield around the base of the CRT electron guns was a bit
off-putting to remove when it was operating.
Pat
OM
wrote:
>I noticed an odd heating effect when working in the back of tube-driven TVs.
>Did those things turn out microwaves?
...Nope. Just standard thermal heating. Despite all those vent holes,
most TV sets from the Golden Era weren't exactly well cooled. I've
seen some papers from ages past where some sets had vent holes
specifically placed and sized so as to cause convection, but the
effect was negligible at best.
...The old 27" B&W that I "inherited" when all the other sets in the
house went Color in 1975 had a particular tube that went bad after
about two years. After the last one blew just before I requisitioned
the set from the garage, I talked to a couple of TV Repair crooks, who
said that some of those "Westinghouse" sets had thermal problems
related to the fact that certain tubes were located too close to the
power supply, and over time the extra heating reduced the life of the
tube. So, since redesigning and moving the tube and socket wasn't
something I wanted to do, I stuck a small box fan in the back of the
set, opened up some of the vent holes a little wider, and forced air
over the entire guts of the set. The bad news is that I had to blow
out the dust once a year to keep it from negating the cooling effects.
The good news is that, until the picture tube finally went out in
1993, I didn't have to change one single fucking tube in that set.
<sigh> Flat screens and wall units may have better pictures, but I'm
still partial to big honker console sets that look more like furniture
than CRTs.
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
news:gu4nt25idq98asmtn...@4ax.com...
>
> <sigh> Flat screens and wall units may have better pictures, but I'm
> still partial to big honker console sets that look more like furniture
> than CRTs.
>
As anyone with cats in the house knows, CRTs have certain benefits that LCDs
don't.
Though the smarter cats quickly learn that leaping up on top of a 1" wide
monitor is apt to end in disaster, even if they make it, they'll suffer the
wrath of their owner due to their claws trying to dig into the front of the
monitor.
Scott Hedrick
"OM" <om@all_trolls_must_DIE.com> wrote in message
news:gu4nt25idq98asmtn...@4ax.com...
> still partial to big honker console sets that look more like furniture
> than CRTs.
Did your desk scream for mercy when you brought in a 20" CRT?
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
Back in college, being a poor college student, took a 3/4" sheet of plywood,
laminated it with masonite.
Cut it with sort of an offset in the middle (one end is 1.5' wide the other
2.5' wide) and still have my 1/2. (Roommate had the other). Put on top of a
pair of filing cabinets and it makes one very sturdy desk.
Still have it 20 years later.
Henry Spencer
Hmm, good point -- pure helium at 1atm is 7-8x more prone to arcing than
normal air. (That is, a given hardware configuration will arc at 1/7-1/8
the voltage.) That conceivably might have been an issue, given that
vacuum-tube gear tends to have quite high voltages by modern standards.
Henry Spencer
Pat Flannery <fla...@daktel.com> wrote:
>I noticed an odd heating effect when working in the back of tube-driven TVs.
>Did those things turn out microwaves?
No, none to speak of. Maybe a bit of RF or induction heating.
Herb Schaltegger
(in article <BEMCh.4040$_73....@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>):
> As anyone with cats in the house knows, CRTs have certain benefits that LCDs
> don't.
Forget both of those . . . I went DLP about four months ago and couldn't be
happier. 56" of 1080p high-def bliss.
Herb Schaltegger
(in article <P8NCh.17$Wl2....@news.sisna.com>):
I have a 19" Viewsonic CRT that's fantastic for photo and video editing but
it's just about as big as I want to go in terms of electron gun tech on a
desktop.
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
news:0001HW.C2010F8D...@enews.newsguy.com...
> On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 18:47:29 -0600, Greg D. Moore \(Strider\) wrote
> (in article <BEMCh.4040$_73....@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>):
>
>> As anyone with cats in the house knows, CRTs have certain benefits that
>> LCDs
>> don't.
>
> Forget both of those . . . I went DLP about four months ago and couldn't
> be
> happier. 56" of 1080p high-def bliss.
Please tell me this is your TV, and not your computer monitor :-)
>
> --
> You can run on for a long time,
> Sooner or later, God'll cut you down.
> ~Johnny Cash
>
--
OM
...Nope, and I had *two* of them at one time. The desk was this really
heavy Suburbia-style desk that weighs about 250lbs that used to be
owned by LBJ himself. He bought it for his office at the TV station,
and used it until he went to the White House in November of 63. Then
it got passed down through the offices until it wound up on the
loading dock ready to be scrapped - the current GM was trying to get
all the old furniture replaced with cheap-assed Office Depot crap. It
was up for grabs, so I grabbed it.
Weirdest desk design, tho - the top is a slab of oak, covered in faux
wood trim, and mounted above the drawers on four brass-coated steel
pegs. Again, Suburbia circa 1952...
OM
<herb.sch...@gmail.com.INVALID> wrote:
>I have a 19" Viewsonic CRT that's fantastic for photo and video editing but
>it's just about as big as I want to go in terms of electron gun tech on a
>desktop.
...The true extreme is a certain Sony 24" HD-format monitor. I had two
of these side-by-side at Dell, which left almost no cube space, but
then again I could easily keep 10-15 apps all running on screen and
not have to squint.
Herb Schaltegger
(in article <hSOCh.4093$_73....@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>):
> "Herb Schaltegger" <herb.sch...@gmail.com.INVALID> wrote in message
> news:0001HW.C2010F8D...@enews.newsguy.com...
>> On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 18:47:29 -0600, Greg D. Moore \(Strider\) wrote
>> (in article <BEMCh.4040$_73....@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>):
>>
>>> As anyone with cats in the house knows, CRTs have certain benefits that
>>> LCDs
>>> don't.
>>
>> Forget both of those . . . I went DLP about four months ago and couldn't
>> be
>> happier. 56" of 1080p high-def bliss.
>
> Please tell me this is your TV, and not your computer monitor :-)
Well, it DOES have a VGA input . . . (plus the usual array of component,
HDMI, and S-video inputs).
>
>>
>> --
>> You can run on for a long time,
>> Sooner or later, God'll cut you down.
>>> Johnny Cash
Pat Flannery
OM wrote:
>
>> I noticed an odd heating effect when working in the back of tube-driven TVs.
>> Did those things turn out microwaves?
>>
>
> ...Nope. Just standard thermal heating.
>
That's odd, because I was picking up a type of heating when the
radiation shield was off the base of the CRT* that wasn't at all like
thermal heating from hot air; it was something like the outer layer of
your skin was getting heated up in some way that didn't affect the rest
of your body like warm air would do. Kind of a dry itchy feeling on
your epidermis that was facing the tube that was uncomfortable almost
immediately and made you sweat even though you didn't feel hot at all.
Do the tubes put out a lot of some sort of light radiation that isn't
visible to the naked eye, like far infrared?
* That shield BTW was made of a cylinder of cardboard covered with lead
foil.
Pat
Dale Carlson
wrote:
>OM wrote:
>>
>>> I noticed an odd heating effect when working in the back of tube-driven TVs.
>>> Did those things turn out microwaves?
>>
>> ...Nope. Just standard thermal heating.
>
>That's odd, because I was picking up a type of heating when the
>radiation shield was off the base of the CRT* that wasn't at all like
>thermal heating from hot air; it was something like the outer layer of
>your skin was getting heated up in some way that didn't affect the rest
>of your body like warm air would do. Kind of a dry itchy feeling on
>your epidermis that was facing the tube that was uncomfortable almost
>immediately and made you sweat even though you didn't feel hot at all.
I don't think there's much in the way of radiation back there, but
likely quite a bit of ionization, especially with that shield off.
Could that explain the sensation you felt?
Dale
Pat Flannery
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
> As anyone with cats in the house knows, CRTs have certain benefits that LCDs
> don't.
>
> Though the smarter cats quickly learn that leaping up on top of a 1" wide
> monitor is apt to end in disaster, even if they make it, they'll suffer the
> wrath of their owner due to their claws trying to dig into the front of the
> monitor.
>
My nephew when he was only around six months old had an amazing way when
put on the floor of the living room of rolling and crawling inside of
ten minutes to where he ended up centered directly under the console
television set's legs, gooing contentedly.
Heat? Hum? Return to the tube-driven womb? Who knows. :-)
The world lost a lot of its magic and romance with the demise of
tube-driven electronics.
There was a absolute art to adjusting the rabbit ears* and having to
manually tune in a station on a TV or radio, that one only finds
nowadays among reactionary Ham and shortwave fans.
And jeeze, the sound of that dead air hum on the huge radio when nothing
at all was coming in...that was the sound of _power_.
They still make those cheapo crystal radio kits BTW?
Those blew my mind when I was a kid... "But... it doesn't even have
batteries! How could it work without...batteries?!"
* "I know! We'll put sheets of aluminum foil on them!" :-D
Pat
Pat Flannery
Henry Spencer wrote:
> No, none to speak of. Maybe a bit of RF or induction heating.
>
You know, that did feel like RF heating now that you mention it.
"Things Not To Do - A Continuing Series by Pat Flannery:
Last week we talked about opening the back of the microwave oven and
discharging the capacitor with your body; today's Thing Not To Do is
wrapping around ten feet of wire around the exterior of one of those
glass plasma spheres with all the pretty glows in it and seeing if you
can get it to work like an antenna so that if you touch your finger to
the ends of the wire you can extract electricity from it and see a
visible arc between the ends of the wire and your finger.
Although this does work, the electricity will emerge in the form of RF
energy, causing a small, but very deep burns on your skin at the point
of arcing, which will go unnoticed for days until that area of the skin
becomes white and without feeling.
Next week we will discuss how a plastic bread bag over a oven mitt
offers unreliable protection from 20,000 volts of electrical energy." :-D
Pat
Pat Flannery
Dale Carlson wrote:
> I don't think there's much in the way of radiation back there, but
> likely quite a bit of ionization, especially with that shield off.
> Could that explain the sensation you felt?
>
Like I said it was odd.
I just started sweating without feeling hot, other than a peculiar dry
itchy feeling on my body like it was getting exposed to some form of
radiation (microwave, optical outside the visible range, or soft X-ray).
It was reminiscent of using an arc welder and its UV emissions against
exposed skin, but different in that the effect seemed penetrating...
that's what made me think of microwaves, as they would penetrate beyond
the exterior, but the total temperature change might not be more than a
degree or so.
I adjusted the TV four or five times over the years we had it, and ran
into the same effect every time.
After around ten minutes you just wanted to get away from it, as you
were sweating heavily all over and felt weak, and it didn't feel healthy
even though you didn't feel hot.
I think Henry might have hit this right on the nose with his RF exposure
concept.
The fact that the company did think it was important to stick a
radiation shield around the electron guns even though that side would be
facing the wall with the whole mass of the CRT between it and the viewer
might be significant.
Pat
Pat Flannery
Henry Spencer wrote:
You know, I don't know if it's my Thunderbird mail program or what, but
your replies are showing up up on the newsgroup between six and ten
hours after you post them for the past couple of weeks.
You're the only one this is happening to, and how it's happening baffles me.
Pat
Scott Hedrick
"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" <mooregr_d...@greenms.com> wrote in message
news:PiNCh.4528$tD2....@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> Back in college, being a poor college student, took a 3/4" sheet of
> plywood, laminated it with masonite.
>
> Cut it with sort of an offset in the middle (one end is 1.5' wide the
> other 2.5' wide) and still have my 1/2. (Roommate had the other). Put on
> top of a pair of filing cabinets and it makes one very sturdy desk.
I like to use a couple of 2 drawer file cabinets with a plain door. If
there's a cutout for the knob, then there's a hole for the cords.
At the moment I'm using a nice formica countertop L, with a very solid desk
slab on a custom-built (more like custom thrown together, with my cabinetry
skills) bookcase. Got a TV, VCR, DVD, stereo, 4 printers, 2 computers and a
bunch of books within arm's reach. Sorta like a little cockpit.
Scott Hedrick
"Herb Schaltegger" <herb.sch...@gmail.com.INVALID> wrote in message
> I have a 19" Viewsonic CRT that's fantastic for photo and video editing
> but
> it's just about as big as I want to go in terms of electron gun tech on a
> desktop.
I remember reading the last column of an online tech writer who told the
story of getting a 24" monitor into his old Boston townhouse apartment. The
building was more than a century old, and the corner of the stairs was
simply too small for the monitor to pass through. He ended up paying to have
a window removed and having his monitor hoisted through.
Happened to visit someone who had Outlook open on both his 42" widescreen
plasma and 24" CRT. Interesting how the big screen showed *less* data than
the CRT.
Herb Schaltegger
(in article <J4_Ch.6$VB3.5...@news.sisna.com>):
> Happened to visit someone who had Outlook open on both his 42" widescreen
> plasma and 24" CRT. Interesting how the big screen showed *less* data than
> the CRT.
Top-end HD resolution today is 1920 by 1080, progressive scan. My Samsung
DLP can display that resolution but a lot of plasmas (especially those from a
year or more ago) max out at 1280 by 720p resolution. Depending on what your
monitor can do, the scenario you mentioned is quite common. My current
laptop has an LCD of 1440 x 900; better than 720p but not nearly as good as
1080p.
OM
<herb.sch...@gmail.com.INVALID> wrote:
>My current laptop has an LCD of 1440 x 900; better than 720p but not nearly as good as
>1080p.
...My Uninspiron 8200 does 1400x1050, although x900 is more like it
because I use a double-high toolbar at the bottom. The only drawback
of using such a display for designing web pages is that what looks
perfectly sized on your display is probably abou 20-25% bigger than
most other people's displays. Standard rule for me is to treat
1280x1024 as the lowest common denominator and size for that. If
you're too cheap to afford a monitor and/or video card that'll handle
that size as a minimum, then you're too low on the food chain to view
my work :-P
OM
wrote:
...Actually, Agent sees Henry's posts in that way, but has seen them
like that for over five *YEARS* now. I just chalk it up to Henry being
special.
OM
wrote:
>I just started sweating without feeling hot, other than a peculiar dry
>itchy feeling on my body like it was getting exposed to some form of
>radiation (microwave, optical outside the visible range, or soft X-ray).
...AH! I can tell you *exactly* what that was, Patrick. You were
having a reaction to the dust buildup inside the set. I've had TV
Repair Crooks warn me about this, and that it's *really* hazardous if
you have asthma.
Jochem Huhmann
> Standard rule for me is to treat 1280x1024 as the lowest common
> denominator and size for that. If you're too cheap to afford a monitor
> and/or video card that'll handle that size as a minimum, then you're
> too low on the food chain to view my work :-P
Ahhh! I *have* 1280x1024, but I have never ever my browser at
full-screen size. A browser is a sideline commodity and not a TV
replacement.
Jochem
--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Scott Hedrick
"Herb Schaltegger" <herb.sch...@gmail.com.INVALID> wrote in message
> On Wed, 21 Feb 2007 10:04:45 -0600, Scott Hedrick wrote
> (in article <J4_Ch.6$VB3.5...@news.sisna.com>):
>
>> Happened to visit someone who had Outlook open on both his 42" widescreen
>> plasma and 24" CRT. Interesting how the big screen showed *less* data
>> than
>> the CRT.
>
> Top-end HD resolution today is 1920 by 1080, progressive scan. My
> Samsung
> DLP can display that resolution but a lot of plasmas (especially those
> from a
> year or more ago) max out at 1280 by 720p resolution. Depending on what
> your
> monitor can do, the scenario you mentioned is quite common. My current
> laptop has an LCD of 1440 x 900; better than 720p but not nearly as good
> as
> 1080p.
In this case, the monitors had the same data across the width, but because
the larger monitor was widescreen, at the same resolution the data top&
bottom was cut off.
For video, it's great. For Outlook, not so good :P
Scott Hedrick
"Jochem Huhmann" <j...@gmx.net> wrote in message
news:m2ejojw...@marvin.revier.com...
> OM <om@all_trolls_must_DIE.com> writes:
>
>> Standard rule for me is to treat 1280x1024 as the lowest common
>> denominator and size for that. If you're too cheap to afford a monitor
>> and/or video card that'll handle that size as a minimum, then you're
>> too low on the food chain to view my work :-P
>
> Ahhh! I *have* 1280x1024, but I have never ever my browser at
> full-screen size. A browser is a sideline commodity and not a TV
> replacement.
Well, us crochety old bastards that keep the screen set at less than
1280x1024 prefer to be able to see the screen. Wait until your eyes get
rheumy, Odiferous Malignant one!
Herb Schaltegger
(in article <2E2Dh.38$jy3.4...@news.sisna.com>):
It's great for video and fantastic for gaming. :-)
Jochem Huhmann
In how far helps it to keep the browser full screen? And 1280x1024
(well, right now I'm at 1152x870) on 19" is actually not that bad.
Anyway, any page that assumes that it is important enough to have
nothing else besides it, is most probably wrong.
Jeff Findley
"OM" <om@all_trolls_must_DIE.com> wrote in message
news:gu4nt25idq98asmtn...@4ax.com...
> <sigh> Flat screens and wall units may have better pictures, but I'm
> still partial to big honker console sets that look more like furniture
> than CRTs.
I've got an old Sears Silvertone Stereo (record player/radio) that fits that
description. If I remember correctly, most of that thing is tubes, except
for a bit of solid state electronics related to the FM Stereo receiver.
It's even got a cat's eye tube as part of the radio tuner. ;-)
Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
news:cG2Dh.39$jC3.6...@news.sisna.com...
Bah, 1280x1024 is for wimps. 1600x1200 here. And if I had a dual head...
I'd do the same on the other.
You can never be too rich (I'm certainly not even close), too thin (missed
that mark 40 lbs ago) or have too much screen real-estate.
Henry Spencer
Pat Flannery <fla...@daktel.com> wrote:
>...it was something like the outer layer of
>of your body like warm air would do. Kind of a dry itchy feeling on
>your epidermis that was facing the tube that was uncomfortable almost
>immediately and made you sweat even though you didn't feel hot at all.
>Do the tubes put out a lot of some sort of light radiation that isn't
>visible to the naked eye, like far infrared?
No... but there might perhaps have been a flow of ionized air coming off
the high-voltage terminals.
>* That shield BTW was made of a cylinder of cardboard covered with lead
>foil.
Undoubtedly meant to block any slight X-ray emission from the electron
gun, but it would also have functioned as an electrostatic shield.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | he...@spsystems.net
Dale Carlson
>Pat Flannery wrote:
>>Do the tubes put out a lot of some sort of light radiation that isn't
>>visible to the naked eye, like far infrared?
>
>No... but there might perhaps have been a flow of ionized air coming off
>the high-voltage terminals.
>
>>* That shield BTW was made of a cylinder of cardboard covered with lead
>>foil.
>
>Undoubtedly meant to block any slight X-ray emission from the electron
>gun, but it would also have functioned as an electrostatic shield.
I used to collect 1940s and early '50s TVs. I still have them all, but
it's been 20 years since I've pulled the back off one of them. But if
memory serves, these shields were called "ion traps", weren't they?
Maybe I'm confusing it with a differently located shield or winding.
Dale
BTW, Henry, I get your posts at pretty much the correct time, but
my newsreader (Agent) always shows them as having a line length
of "0", until I download them. Yours are the only posts that are like
that. As well they should be :)
Scott Hedrick
> You can never be too rich (I'm certainly not even close), too thin (missed
> that mark 40 lbs ago) or have too much screen real-estate.
I miss my 21" monitor. Right now I have the 17" model that came with the
Dell, plus another 15". When I get the money, I'll get something larger than
19" in LCD, move the 17" to where the 15" is, and use the 15" as a third
monitor.
Jeff Findley
"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" <mooregr_d...@greenms.com> wrote in message
news:jF5Dh.5083$Jl....@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>> 1280x1024 prefer to be able to see the screen. Wait until your eyes get
>> rheumy, Odiferous Malignant one!
>>
>
> Bah, 1280x1024 is for wimps. 1600x1200 here. And if I had a dual head...
> I'd do the same on the other.
>
> You can never be too rich (I'm certainly not even close), too thin (missed
> that mark 40 lbs ago) or have too much screen real-estate.
I agree. I'm currently running 1600 x 1200 at work and could *always* use
more real estate when running MS Dev Studio. At work, I'm using an old HP
P1110 monitor that has the too bright brightness problem, necessitating my
entering the normally hidden factory settings so I could tweak the
brightness below the normal user settings. It's o.k., for now, but
eventually I'm sure the problem will get bad enough that the monitor will
accidentally stop working completely. ;-)
At home, I'm stuck with 1280x1024 with my even older, refurbished, IBM
monitor, but at least the picture is very crisp.
What really kills me is when I have to look at someone else's monitor at
work that's set at 1024 x 768. You can barely see enough of the code in the
debugger to understand what's going on!
Paul Repacholi
> * That shield BTW was made of a cylinder of cardboard covered with
> lead foil.
That is to block X-rays from the neck. The funnel and face plate
are VERY high lead content glass, but the neck glass is not, so as
to enable building the guns etc on valve production gear.
Hop David
> 1280x1024 as the lowest common denominator and size for that. If
> you're too cheap to afford a monitor and/or video card that'll handle
> that size as a minimum, then you're too low on the food chain to view
> my work :-P
>
> OM
John Conway was a member of a geometry mailing list I participate in. He
was so fond of his old computer he wouldn't update it. If you wanted to
send him pictures or diagrams, you had to make them in ASCII. He
couldn't view jpegs, gifs, etc.
Conway was (and probably still is) extraordinary. I rank him right up
there with Henry Spencer.
Hop
Scott Dorsey
>OM wrote:
>
>> 1280x1024 as the lowest common denominator and size for that. If
>> you're too cheap to afford a monitor and/or video card that'll handle
>> that size as a minimum, then you're too low on the food chain to view
>> my work :-P
>
>was so fond of his old computer he wouldn't update it. If you wanted to
>send him pictures or diagrams, you had to make them in ASCII. He
>couldn't view jpegs, gifs, etc.
He's not the only one. I am typing this on a Hewlett-Packard 2645
display terminal. We are legion on Usenet.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
Paul Repacholi
> memory serves, these shields were called "ion traps", weren't they?
> Maybe I'm confusing it with a differently located shield or winding.
That is inside the gun, with a magnet outside to deflect the e beam
and *slightly* deflect the ions. Oops, who put that lump off metal in
the way. Heavy ions are really, really good at cooking your phosphors.
Dr J R Stockton
21 Feb 2007 06:12:55, Pat Flannery <fla...@daktel.com> posted:
The same would happen to mine if I handled this group among the first,
and the explanation is perfectly simple.
--
(c) John Stockton, Surrey, UK. REPLYyyww merlyn demon co uk Turnpike 6.05.
Web <URL:http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html> -> Timo Salmi: Usenet Q&A.
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/news-use.htm> : about usage of News.
No Encoding. Quotes precede replies. Snip well. Write clearly. Mail no News.
Bill Baker
> I noticed an odd heating effect when working in the back of tube-driven TVs.
> Did those things turn out microwaves?
Some of the high voltage vacuum tubes commonly used in old tube TV's
produced X-rays, actually. They were shielded, of course, but it was a
known hazard. If you dig around in the surplus tube bin at your
electronics junk store, you'll find handfuls of 'em. I think they were
used in the picture tube drive circuit.
If I'm recalling my physics correctly, driving the anode on one of
those should produce microwaves instead. Anyway, always seemed to me
that you could whomp up a helluva backyard death ray with a few hundred
of those tubes.
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----
Chris Jones
> Their usual pressurant gas for the electronics compartments was helium.
Can't say I'd heard that before. It's an interesting choice: helium
conducts heat quickly, is very light, and, having the smallest molecule
of any gas, is spectacularly able to leak, through spaces which are
effectively solid walls to other gases.
Martin Postranecky
Russian journalist 'may have been killed for critical reporting'
----------------------------------------------------------------
Last updated at 17:47pm on 5th March 2007
A military correspondent for Russia's top business daily has died after
falling out of a window - and some fear he might have been killed for his
critical reporting.
Ivan Safronov, the military affairs writer for Kommersant, died on Friday
after falling from a fifth-story window in the stairwell of his apartment
building in Moscow.
His body was found by neighbors shortly after the fall.
With prosecutors investigating the death, Kommersant and some other media
suggested foul play.
"The suicide theory has become dominant in the investigation, but all
those who knew Ivan Safronov categorically reject it," Kommersant said in
an article Monday..../snip/
....Safronov, who had served as a colonel in the Russian Space Forces
before joining Kommersant in 1997, frequently angered authorities with his
critical reporting.
He was repeatedly questioned by the Federal Security Service, the main KGB
successor, which suspected him of divulging state secrets.
No charges were filed because Safronov was able to prove his reports were
based on open sources, Kommersant said.
Last December, Safronov angered the authorities when he was the first to
report the third consecutive launch failure of the new Bulava
intercontinental ballistic missile, which President Vladimir Putin hailed
as a basis of the nation's nuclear might for years to come.
The authorities never acknowledged the launch failure.
"For some reason, it is those journalists who are disliked by the
authorities who die in this country," the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets
said..../snip/
....Russia is among the most dangerous countries for journalists and is
plagued by attacks on reporters who seek to expose official corruption and
other abuses.
The problem was highlighted by the October killing of Anna Politkovskaya,
an investigative reporter and a harsh critic of human rights abuses in
Chechnya.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in January that
13 Russian journalists have been murdered in contract-style killings since
2006, making Russia the third deadliest country for journalists after Iraq
and Algeria over the past 15 years.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2027173,00.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html
?in_article_id=440267&in_page_id=1811
Pat Flannery
Chris Jones wrote:
>
> Can't say I'd heard that before. It's an interesting choice: helium
> conducts heat quickly, is very light, and, having the smallest molecule
> of any gas, is spectacularly able to leak, through spaces which are
> effectively solid walls to other gases.
>
And now I'm not sure that's what they use, as Henry Spencer pointed out
that they may have been just using it for a pressurization test due to
its tendency to leak out of even the smallest opening, and that their
normal cooling circulation gas is probably something like nitrogen.
Henry pointed out that helium can migrate through glass on vacuum tubes
and screw up their function.
This could explain the triple Soyuz guidance failure due to a 95% helium
mixture being used in the test and some of it migrating into the tubes.
Pat
David Lesher
>If I'm recalling my physics correctly, driving the anode on one of
>those should produce microwaves instead. Anyway, always seemed to me
>that you could whomp up a helluva backyard death ray with a few hundred
>of those tubes.
There was a SF story where the hijacked crew turned the forward
spotlight, conveniently right over the captain's chair, into an
X-ray tube...and slowly cooked the Chief Hijacker's brains....
--
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433