Google Wave First Impressions

So, I got an invite to the Google Wave Developer preview, and it's pretty cool.  It looks right on track for a beta at the end of September. It was a little funny at first because you just get this information overload right away.  Everything everyone was talking about flooded my inbox.  This was because of a special dev channel that you can subscribe to right when you sign up for your developer account.  Basically it's a constant stream of what the devs think is important to get done.  There is a lot going on.  Linking Wave to Google's App engine works pretty nice, and you can get a lot done with robots. So, dealing with the information overload lead me to use the search box a lot.  There was no way for me to read all the waves, they all just kept going.  Each wave would have a dozen or so people doing all sorts of things.  One wave was a group of people collaboratively creating a book, and another wave was a list of robots.  The most common waves I found were titled "test"  because that was what the channel was for.  Testing stuff that you are writing for Wave. Once you get used to the information just streaming in from everywhere, you start to like it.  You can search for anything you want, and real time results of waves on your channels start flowing in.  You can reply to waves, play games of chess, and even add hot spots to a map.  The conversation really just flows smoothly. Now that I'm getting in my groove, I started to wonder what kinds of cool stuff I can do with Wave.  I started looking for bots, and the robot wave just popped right up.  I saw the Twitter bot, Tweety the Twitbot, and then added the email address (tweety-wave@appspot.com) to my contact list.  The whole process to this point was just like any other bot (like smarterchild on AIM...)  Now I can start a wave, and include tweety.  From then on, anything you say in the Wave will end up on twitter.  So it's important not to use multiple bots in one wave... like I just did... you end up tweeting things like $MSFT... anyway, that tweet was supposed to be a wave for Stocky (stocky-wave@appspot.com) who actually changes the text you enter into a stock quote (like you type "$MSFT" and Stocky changes it to this "MSFT (25.56)".) The bots are awesome!  You can embed pictures, maps, surveys, polls, real time weather, HTML, and all sorts of stuff into a Wave.

Another cool thing I noticed right away is that everything can be minimized.  With the announcement of the Google Chrome OS, I can see Wave as evolving into some sort of live desktop.  You can have multiple waves open at once, and just switch between them.  The full screen reading mode will also be pretty nice for my netbook. In final, my first impression is that Google Wave will revolutionize the way people communicate on the web.  Everything is so easy to do.  Want the weather?  tell the weather robot where you want the weather for.  Stocks? Directions?  Microblogging?  Actually that makes me think, how will this effect twitter?  You have real time search, and a more interactive way to communicate with your friends! Anyway.  I was really excited about Wave before, and now that I've gotten a taste of it, I don't think I can stop.

Social Media is definately the future!

It should not surprise anyone that I've been inspired by another TED talk.  I mean, every talk on the site is something worth watching at least once.  This one is about social media.  I have been following Andrew Sullivan on his incredible coverage of the protests in Iran, and I have been watching the #iranelection tag on twitter too, and I'm a firm believer that CNN doesn't stand a chance against this type of media.  Sure, the video isn't in HD, and there isn't a reporter editing the footage and choosing which scenes to show you... it's just what is happening.  The real coverage.  It worked in China for the earthquake... it was used to make sure that the schools to replace those that collapsed were actually built to code... and it's the only media coming out of Iran while all the news stations are being cut out of the loop.

     I know you aren't going to get the best quality journalism from this news, but you aren't going to get good quality journalism until after the issue is resolved... the only thing that TV networks can ever offer you is coverage, and any monkey with a camera can do that.  I don't mean to say camera men aren't talented because finding the right shot isn't easy, but most of the difference between a camera man and some ordinary person is that the camera man usually has better equipment.

     This leads me to my next realization, the future of print media.  So, we all know the newspapers are having trouble re-acclimating to the digital world.  When newspapers move to the internet, every article has to carry it's own weight... the atomic unit of sales changed from an entire paper, to an individual articles.  Social media is really good a producing raw unedited footage of what is happening, and initial public reactions, however traditional media has this ability to censer the story, check the sources, and produce good quality media that requires investment to produce.  We must not loose that.

   My question, how do we combine our social media and traditional media into a unit that works together?  I like the concept of free licenses for social media (free as in freedom to reuse or remix the content for non-commercial or at least non-profit use), but the real question is how do you put a price on or handle purchasing licenses to the media?  I feel the creator has more right to profit from their work than some media outlet using the story to attract viewers or sell papers.

Anyway, there is a lot that can be said for the way the world is shifting to the internet.  Blogs, news aggregation, youtube, cellphone cameras, and personal video cameras are changing the way we get out news.  Which I think is fine.  I think that spreading the information is very important, but there is something to be said for the people who come in after the story is over.

The people who follow up the story with quality journalism (the who, why, what happened, and how it turned out.)  The story that is documented for the historians to record, and the story our descendants will learn in school.  We need to make sure that someone checked the score board and made sure they weren't mislead by someone with an agenda.

So, embrace the digital revolution, but don't forget your roots.  Support quality journalism (like PBS.)

A call for opinion!

So, I want to know what everyone thinks of the Wikidot site I'm working on.  I want to know what you want to see on the site.  Right now, it's my super-spam RSS feed, which has all of my activity from Hulu, Netflix, Wakoopa, Twitter, and my blogs all in one place.

The Smart phone competition!

So, over on Gizmodo.com they did a review of the latest and greatest smart phones, and not much to my surprise, Windows Mobile wasn't on the list!  haha.  Ok, I am biased against Windows, which is the only reason I say that; in all reality, Windows mobile is a decent mobile operating system.

iPhone 3.0 VS Android 1.5

Anyway, the review put my favorite phone OS (Android) against my arch nemesis (iPhone).  So I have to bask in this little bit of glory.  Both phone operating systems are nearly the same in terms of highlighted features in the review, with the exception that Android doesn't work with iTunes, Android doesn't officially support tethering (even though the iPhone carrier doesn't support it), and Android supports both background apps and third-party  Apps.  I do have to say that I am disappointed that the review didn't mention that Android supports the ability for user's to add third party video codecs, which iPhone doesn't.

iPhone 3G S VS. HTC Magic

On a hardware level, the iPhone has multi-touch and a headphone port, and I have to admit I would really like to see both of those things added to an Android phone.  The plus side is that anyone can make an Android phone, so one day it is possible to add multi-touch to a phone for Android.  On the Plus side, the magic has a microSD card slot, which gives it the potential for more than 32GB of storage, and the Magic has a 3.2 mega pixel camera, which is slightly more than the iPhone.

Cost

So, both phones are "linked" to a subscription.  The difference in cost between the two phones is fairly significant right off the bat.  With a 2 year contract, the iPhone is either $200 or $300, while the HTC Magic is $150.  The iPhone is permanently linked to AT&T, however the Magic is only linked to T-mobile for the contract, and after your contract, you can take an Android phone to another phone provider that uses SIM cards.  Then in terms of your cost over the next two years, the iPhone's average cost is $290-$390 more than Android, and the maximum cost is $750 - $850 more for the iPhone.  In fact, between the iPhone 3G S, HTC Magic, Blackberry Storm, and the Palm Pre, the average cost for the Magic is less than any other smart phone, and only the Palm Pre offers a cheaper plan if you compare the unlimited everything plans.

So, which phone do you think I'm going to get?  To me it's pretty obvious because I decided I would get an Android phone last year, and I will honestly probably hold off until next year to get an Android phone just because I want to see if Verizon is ever going to jump on the bandwagon.  I honestly have had some bad luck with T-Mobile over the past couple years, and I am holding out for multi-touch and an 1/8" jack.

Anyway, I am biased toward Android, and the iPhone is a really good phone;  That's why they are my arch nemesis.

Smart power outlets? Awesome!

So, I have to admit that this video does kinda seem like it's just promoting a product, but it's a totally awesome idea!

If you aren't there to use power, you can turn your outlets off!

Anyway... just some food for thought.

Earth Hour! Take part, and help a little bit...

So, I have recently been talking alot about my own power usage over the past couple weeks, and here is your chance to do sometime!  Tomorrow March 28th from 9:30 - 10:30 PM (your local time) turn off all your lights!






This movement is getting bigger, and while it isn't enough to solve the problem of using too much power, it definately helps a little bit.

I know it's not tech... but it's important!

Go to Whitehouse.gov!  Obama is hosting an experiment to try and get the American people involved in a nation wide town hall!

All you have to do is go to the site, vote on a few questions other people are asking, and maybe even propose a few questions of your own.

I think this is an awesome idea, and everyone needs to take part.

Thanks... and participate!


FYI, all of the hyperlinks go to this site.

Quick Post about Ligh bulbs...

If you were to turn on a compact flocecent light, an incondescent light, and use my entertainment center normally for one year, you would use about 1,587 kWhs of electricity.  If you were to break down which one used the most... you would get the pie chart to the left. 

You would spend $80 more per year to use the incondescent light.  And you would produce at least 696 more lbs of CO² per year with the incondescent light.

So, next time you think of how you can cut down on your power bill, just remember, compact florescent light my be annoying in the way they flicker when you first turn them on, but each one could save you up to $80 a year... now how many light do you have in your house?

that's all for now.

It's Obama on Jay Leno

The Kill-A-Watt experiment

So, as part of the requirements for the Tweet-A-Watt, I also purchased a P3 Kill-A-Watt (model#: 4400).  So, before I open the thing up, I was curious what kinds of numbers it produces.  So I started a few tests.  I have completed the first test so far, and I have published the spread sheet that I am tracking the data in.  So far, I am monitoring Wattage, Amperage, and I will be doing some quality of service(QOS) tests too... just for kicks.

And so far, I think the results have been interesting.  So, most of this data should be self explanitory.  I hope.  I have completed one test, so the results should be fairly accurate for test 1, however, test 2 is still in progress, and because I haven't created a way for the Kill-A-Watt to transmit the data to my computer, the kW section has to be entered in manually.  One more piece of data that is not clearly present in this chart is the cost per kilowatt.  On a separate sheet (which I did not publish) I recored my power usage in kilowatt hours for the past six months, and compared that data to the dollar amount of my bill (data provided by puget sound entergy.)  Then I took the average from the past six months, and came to the amount of $0.105695 as the average price per kilowatt hour.  Then I used that number to get the price per watt hour, and then multiply that number by the watt hours that I use.  As an extra and not yet useful piece of information, I have the % of my hourly average.  This is also based on my Puget Sound Energy bill, except I divided the months into day (because each bill tells me how many days it covers) and then days into hours, and take the average of all six months.  I imagine that this data will become more accurate over time, as I enter more electric bills into the table.



In the above table, you should see a section for QOS, however, until I create a database to log that data in regular intervals, the data provided is useless.  It merely shows a snapshot that represents a small fraction of time.As far as QOS data is concerned, I am monitoring Volt, Frequency, Watt meter, Volt-Amps (VA), Power Factor (PF).  I still don't know what the difference between the Watt meter and kW functions are;  I assume is is probably the case that the watt meter uses a consistent amount of time, and the kW funciton meters kW hours over the total time that the unit was plugged into the wall. 

Volt-Amps are constantly changing with the load put on the system.  For most purposes they are the same thing as watts, however for determining power quality, they can be used to determine is you home handles low power loads better than high power loads.

Power Factor (PF) is usually expressed as a percent because it is a number between 0 and 1.  It is the ratio of real power to apparent power, and is a fairly good indicator of the efficiency of your power grid.  Normally a residential PF is higher, and commercial is lower.  To compensate for a low PF, the utility companies will need to install additional equipment such as power regulators and capacitors. 

So, now you know!

Anyway, as far as my power quality.. I know that I have seen the Voltage from the outlet my entertainment center is plugged into as high as 122 Volts and as low as 116 Volts.  The frequency is usually pretty close to 59.9Hz, but I did see it dip to about 57Hz.  My power factor is 88%, which makes me think my connection to the grid is fairly close to a power sub-station (like the one over by the Boeing plant), or at least is some what efficient. My Volt-Amperes seems to be fairly consistant around 120VA.

I know it really doesn't mean a lot now, however, I will be able to collect this data over time, and hopefully soon I will be able to create a picture of what normal power consumption is supposed to look like.

Anyway, more to come soon.  I'm still troubleshooting the whole XBee software issue  I guess I need to compile the driver as a kernel module, or recompile the kernel with the driver in it.  So... I'll post some instructions for anyone who is interested in the project.

So, that's all for now.

Later,
     SteveO

XBee Module - My 1st electronics project!

So, I have to admit I was a little surprised that the kit I ordered wasn't already put together, however I guess it gave my a chance to learn hot to solder!  So, I broke out my soldering iron and got to work! 

The first thing I learned was that I had two problems.  the gauge of solder I was using was too thick.  I needed about a 23 gauge solder, but what I had was about 16 gauge solder.  The second thing I learned was that the point on my soldering iron was too big, however a little work with a file, and I was able to take the size of the soldering tip down to what I needed.

As you can see in this picture, because the gauge of sodder I had was too thick, I ended up with these big ugly clumps of sodder at the top of the unit, and because the iron wasn't sharp enough, I was melting the silicon on the board when I soddered each point. 


When I got to the 14 pins in the middle, and the 7 pins on each side, I had sharpened my soldering iron and gotten a smaller gauge solder.  So there I didn't have the huge clumps of useless metal.  I have a strange feeling that once I get around to testing this thing, the extra solder will need to be removed, but my friend didn't come over with his multimeter, so I haven't done that yet.

However, at the very least, I must have done something right, because when all was done, the XBee chip slid right into place, and the USB adapter worked fine.

Now, I guess the next step will be to get some form of software to work with the module.  Then I will be able to flash the firmware, and start transmitting some data.

My next step is to get my second module in the mail (I know, I was stupid and only ordered one module so it doesn't really do anything yet.) 

However, I do have my Kill-A-Watt, so that means I am one step closer to my goal of having a way to log my power usage into a database!  The original project was called a Twit-A-Watt (post power usage to twitter, but I really didn't care about the twitter part.  Just a way for me to see how much power I am using.

The cool part is that right now, I know that my DSL bridge and wireless router have used .02 Watts in the past 2 hours (.01 Watts/Hour.)  I guess it's not as cool as sa hooking it up to my TV, but it is something. 

Actually, I should probably just hook it to my TV and see what happens.  OK, that's what I'm going to do now.

Oh, BTW, I have a few web pages that I want to note here so other people can do what I have done:

   The web page for the original Tweet-A-Watt project

The general steps I have taken so far are:

• Buy a P3 4400 Kill-A-Watt I chosse newegg.com because they had the right price.
• Buy 2 Xbee modules, and 2 Xbee Adapters and a FTDI (USB) cable. 
• Assemble the XBee adapter kit 

And that's what I've done so far.  Now, the actual Tweet-A-Watt project has some more to it than just what I've done, and on the original project's page they have a detailed list of all the small parts you need (diodes, capasitors, heat shrink, regulators, etc,) and that page is a good resource to figure out how to do everything except assemble the XBee adapter kit (however it does link to the site that contains the instructions.)

So, yea, that's what I've done so far, and now I have to work on the software aspect of getting the Xbee to do something (anything!) 

So, that's all for now, and I'll keep updating as things move along.

Later,
     SteveO

So, are they delaying digital or what?

Here is a picture of my newest antenna; which is only to keep reminding you about the digital switch over that is coming!  There has been a lot off talk about delaying the switch to DTV.  Obama said delay it and the Senate agreed, but then the House said no.  So, it looks like as of right now, right t his moment, February 17th is the day you need to be ready for digital.  Which means that you will want to build an antenna. 

I keep stressing the conversion to digital now because it is important to get ready before the analog signals are gone.  Both because you can use the analog signals to help find reliable digital signals, and because nobody likes to not have the option of watching TV... even though Hulu.com is so much cooler.  I also keep stressing to get ready now because we were told about this 10 years ago, and it is time to stop dragging you feet.  Everyone has waited until the last minute to request the coupon for the digital boxes, and now there is a waiting list to get a coupon.  You have until March to request a coupon, but you will have to wait to get one.

In the mean time, I've been hearing about more and more people who are silly enough to go out and buy there $40 and $50 DTV antennas when you can build a much better and more reliable antenna for under $10!  I even build an antenna out of junk I found laying around the house that worked better than the one I purchased.

It is the time to be thrifty, and this is one of those situations where you actually benefit from not wasting your money by getting a better product.  So, everyone keep in mind it is time to upgrade.  Even if the revote that may take place this week happens, don't keep procrastinating.  You can begin receiving the benefits now from DTV, so why keep wasting you time with analog?

Embrace the ditigal change!

How to get the channels you want from you DTV Antenna

One thing that everyone who receives TV over the airwaves should start doing is working on setting up your digital TV experience before the digital switch!  I have heard of a great many people having trouble picking up channels.  It wasn't until today that I finally got Fox.  So, I'm positive that I get every channel now, but if you are having trouble picking up a digital channel that you can get the analog equivalent for, then I have some advice on what to do.

Here are some tips for the procedure I used:

1. Tune your TV to the analog channel you are looking to get.
• Just about every analog channel should have one or more digital channels.
• Some of these are completely new channels, but others are just formatted to fit different TVs better
  
2. Move your antenna around your home while watching the TV to find the spot with best reception
• This does not have to be the spot where you will eventually mount the antenna
  
• The exact spot and direction of where you hold the antenna may change reception quality
• Higher is not always better
• Near a window is not always better.
• I got the best reception in the middle of the room about 4.5 feet off the floor
  
3. Hold the antenna in place while your TV or converter box goes through the auto-program routine...
4. Check your list of channels, and take note of how many channels are available
• Depending on your device, you may not be able to watch digital channels that the Auto-Program function does not find, even if you know the channel is there.
  
• You may decide later that you cannot live without a channel you never had before, however it may take a long time to find a single spot that receives every single channel available.
  
5. If the channel doesn't come in, then repeat steps 2 - 4 until either it works or the TV defeats you... 
• it took me 3 days and 28 antenna designs to win...
• I spent about 1.5 hours repeating steps 2 - 4 with my fractal antenna... then I won!
• WARNING: The thrill of defeating the TV may make watching the TV seem less exciting.
  
6. Once you get all the digital channels you are looking for, tune your TV to the one that was hardest to get, and seek a spot to mount your antenna.
• If you spend as much time as I have at this, you can visualise the wavelength of a digital TV signal; which is really kind of cool and sad at the same time...
• while finalising your setup keep in mind that you want to make sure your TV works while you are sitting in your normal TV viewing spot... it doesn't do you much good if you can only watch TV while standing with your hand on the ceiling...

Other than that, I'm not sure what else there is to say.

Good luck, and embrase the Digital Revolution!

Digital Antenna Experiment - Part 3

Well, I'll start with an action shot of my most recent design... and guess what;  I finally get Fox!

That's right, this little baby picks up 23 digital channels (fox has a 24 hour weather channel too.)  I think the best part is that almost every channel is high definition, and even though they pushed back the conversion to digital to June, I am much happier with Digital than I ever was with an antenna.

 Anyway, I want to get into a little bit about how I made my antenna.

For this duct-tape beauty, I actually went to the store and bought some wire.  That's right, this one isn't just peiced together with junk that I found around the house, or that people just gave to me for free.

I spent a whole $3!

All you need, is to go to your local hardware store and buy 28 inches of 6 gauge copper wire, and you might want to go to an electronics store and buy a TV-matching transformer.  The rest you can peice together from whatever you want.  it all depends on if you care about the way the thing works.

However, there is one important rule to follow... don't connect to two sides together with a piece of metal.  It won't hurt anything, but your reception will go down the tube.

So anyway... back to the instructions.

Here is a breif breakdown of how to make this antenna:

1. Get your materials
1.  32 inches of 6 gauge copper wire
• you may want extra in case you make a mistake, get extra wire in 8 inch increments, each increment will allow for 1 mistake
• The directions that originally inspired me to make this said for 18 gauge... I disagreed!
  
2. a TV (Impedance Matching) Transformer
   
• I am told that you want 300 - 50 ohms
3. duct tape and electrical tape
• (although some people say to use screws with washers)
4. A this piece of plastic about 4 X 8 inches in size
• I broke one of those magnetic picture things that you get from the dollar store.
• it wasn't one of the ones my sister got me...
5. Needle nose vice grips (I suppose you could probably use pliers)
   
• You may want two pairs, but I made do with what I had
6. A good pair of wire cutters
• or just ask the person at the hardware store to cut 6 - 8" strips
7. An 8 inch ruler
• I used a carpenter's square
  
8. A protractor
• Yet again the carpenter's square and a piece of paper...
9. A marker
   
2. Make your fractals
1. Cut an 8" piece of wire
2. Measure out and mark 1 inch increments in the copper
• you may want to make a notch in the copper because the marker can rub off
3. Draw a straight line on a piece of paper, then use the protractor (or carpenter's square) to find a 60 degree angle, and draw a second line that passes through the first line at 60 degrees.  
• You now have a 60 degree angle, and a 120 degree angle on the paper
4. bend the wire at each inch marker using this patter:

1. bend the wire 60 degrees to the left
2. Then bend the wire 120 degrees to the right
3. repeat steps one 1 and 2 two more times
4. then bend the wire 60 degrees to the left 
• Now do this 3 more times  so you have 4 fractals.
  
3. Make your dipoles (After all, this is a type of dipole antenna)
• For this, you need to take 2 straight pieces of 6" to 8 " wire
• I really don't know yet if it helps to use larger pieces of wire.
• use electrical tape to fasten one fractal to the end of each wire
• The picture best illustrates how this looks
  
4. Mount the dipoles and the transformer
• Layout your piece of plastic, and draw a few lines on it so that the antenna looks symetrical. 
• There probably is more science to what works best, but if you use duct tape, then you can experiment on your own...
• Connect one wire from the transformer to each dipole, and there you have it!

So... these are obviously simplified instructions.  I've only built two of these so far, and I haven't figured out if it is better to use thicker or thinner gauge wire, but I have to say that copper seems to work better than a coat hanger!

I would also like to take this opportunity to note that the location of your antenna is very important.  I have a 25 foot coax cable so I could move my antenna to the perfect spot. As you can see here:

I had to go all over the apartment before I found the "majic" spot where the antenna picks up all the channels and a spot where I could actually mount an antenna;  I had done similar chores with all of my other anntenna's, but I just increased my cable length, and it was worth the extra couple of bucks to get a long coax cable.


So I plan to not mess  around too much with my antenna situation for a few days... and maybe I'll actually watch a little of the TV I've worked so hard to get reception for... or maybe I'll just watch all the shows I've missed on Hulu.

but the important part is that now I have a choice between watching the shows whenever I want starting the day after they are aired on TV, or watching the shows at the mercy of the network exectutives! 

Next time: After you get your antenna, you need to actually fine tune your stations...I'll talk about my battle to get Fox, and how I finally got it done.

Digital Antenna Experiment - Part 2

Today's experiment was to try a Fractal Antenna. I have heard these are the antenna to have, and they really aren't that hard to make.

However, I did a really quick job on this one, so the angles weren't perfect. After playing with it a little bit, I think that it may be work purchasing good materials to make the antenna with.

For this one, I used two coat hangers, a transformer I had laying around, some random peice of plastic, duct tape, electrical tape, and two screws. As it turns out, I think next time I will replace the two screws with electrical tape.

I think that due to the large amount of wast that I had left over from the coat hangers, I probably could have used 1 coat hanger, but I would have had to straighten out the coat hanger completely.

So, I tried to follow these directions that I found on instructables.com but I didn't have all the stuff they said to use, and I was shooting for more of a $0 budget rather than $15.

I also opted against the reflector, but as soon as I find a scrap peice of aluminum, I will be right on that. (I may canabalize my Xbox case, there is a big peice in there... or I saw this chicken wire idea on YouTube.)


So, down to what this thing can do! Well, it still doesn't get FOX, but I can adjust the length of Coax cable that I have attached, and the antenna seems very sensitive to direction, height, and angle. Sometimes I can pick up the analog signal enough to get sound, but I haven't gotten the digital signal yet.

The real question is wether it is worth the effort. And I think the answer is yes! We have beaten the all mighty nail on the end of a Coax cable with this one! However, we didn't beat it by much. Today, while playing around with my antenna (AKA coax cable with a nail on the end) and I found that if I continually run the autoprogram feature, sometimes my antenna wouldn't pick up all the channels, however, the Coat-Hanger fractal antenna will consistantly pick up 21 channels (even though 9-2 and 51-1 are in spanish, 16-1 and 16-2 are the same, but in different resolutions, 9-3 and 28-2 are completely identical, and 33-4 is the worship channel.) So despite everything, I still have 16 completely unique channels that I can watch, including a channel for little kids (in the event that someone from my family actually comes out to Seattle with one of my neices of nephews.)

So, the coat-hnger fractal antenna is worth the time to put together in my book, and with a little bit of luck, I might be able to put one together that actually picks up FOX.

Digital Antenna Experiment - Part 1

So, lately there has been a lot of talk on the Internet about digital antennas. So, after reviewing a few videos I decided to experiment a little bit with what I happen to have laying around the house.

I have the results summary at the end if that is all you care about.

Let my start by introducing the testing environment I have. My apartment is 25 feet off the ground, and I get the best reception about 7 feet above my floor. Ground level at my location is approximately 14 feet above sea level. So, I conducted all of my tests at an elevation of 46 feet above sea level.

Most of the channels I receive are broadcast out of Seattle, WA. This means that the signals I am receiving are 10 Miles North West of my location.

So, now we can talk about the materials I used in this experiment.

I had 3 types of nails, and 1 Screw

• a 3" Galvanized Steel screw
• a 3 7/8" 6 penny rusty steel nail
• a 3 3/8" 6 penny rust-proof steel nail
• a 3 3/4" Aluminium nail

I also had 2 - 5 foot lengths of coax cable, a Jensen model TV911 amplified digital antenna, and 2 - 7" deep tin cans

• a 4 1/4" diameter can (Tin Can)
  
• a 6 1/8" diameter can (Hershey's Chocolate Can)

In each experiment I tried adjusting the height of the antenna, direction of the antenna (which doesn't seem to matter), material of nail/screw.  In nearly every case, I found that 46 feet above sea level was best for my location, however I could see this being very specific to my location.  You may have better luck with a different height where you are.

My entire experiment in this set is to find out what the best combination of a Coaxial Cable, each nail/screw, and the tin cans.  I have broken the entire experiment into 5 individual experiments.  In my results, I ignore the analog channels because all the analog channels I receive are available in digital, however, the average number of analog channels I can receive is 3, but the maximum is 5 (with a rusty nail connected to the copper part of a Coax cable.)

Experiment 1 - Jensen Model TV911 Digital Antenna
     This Amplified digital antenna has the rabbit ears look to it, and also had an FM loop attached to it.  I originally bought this antenna with my TV thinking that it would be best to get an amplified antenna.  Boy was I wrong!  I am lucky to get more than 3 channels with this antenna, and have concluded that it is the worst antenna used in this experiment.
 

Experiment 2 - 5 foot Coaxial Cable

     After my sheet disappointment with the antenna that I bought, I decided to just try plugging in a Coax cable to the back of my TV set, and use a safty pin to hold the end of the cable up as far as I could reach.  This resulted in more channels.  I was able to receive 10 digital channels.

Experiment 3 - Tin Can

     I received a tin can, that was used for some sort of food product.  I poked holes in the side of that can at every inch marker from the botton, then on the bottom I poked a hole in the center and mid-point between the center and edge.  I found that adjusting the placement of the screw did not affect the tin-can antenna's ability to receive channels, but a drastic improvement was found when I made sure that the copper and outer mesh of the coax did not touch.  I also found that the reception was better if the copper was connected to a nail/screw, and the outer mesh was pressed firmly on the side of the can.

However, the best performance I was able to achieve with the Tin can was using the Anti-rust Steel screw, and I was able to 10 digital channels.  This places the tin can at place number 3, even with a coax cable.

Experiment 4 - Hershey's Can
 After repeating the steps I took with the Tin can, the Hershey's Can prouced similar results, but had the ability to receive 12 digital channels. This means that the Hershey's can is placed at the number 2 spot.



Experiment 5 - Coaxial Cable with a Nail
 In case you didn't guess yet, we have a winner!  A 6 penny rust proof steel nail on the end of a coax cable is the best Antenna I have tested so far!  I was able to receive 21 digital channels using this method!  (but for some reason I still don't get Fox...)
 

Results Summary 
For those of you who skipped the rest to know what my resuts were, here is a recap:

#5 - A Jensen model TV911 amplified digital antenna (2 digital channels).
#3 - A coaxial cable pinned to the wall with a safety pin (10 digital channels).
#3 - A tin can antenna with a 6 penny rust resistant steel nail connected to the copper of a coax cable, and the outter mesh pressed against the outside of the can (10 digital channels).
#2 - A Hershey's can antenna with a 6 penny rust resistant steel nail connected to the copper of a coax cable, and the outter mesh pressed against the outside of the can (12 digital channels).
#1 - A six penny rust resistant steel nail connected to the copper core of a coax cable, and nothing connected to the outer mesh (21 digital channels).

My advice, just strip the end of a coax cable, and put a nail on it, then hold it up as high as you can.  I also noticed that a longer coax cable gets better reception, so maybe a really long coax cable is all you need.

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Next time for part two will either be a pringles can antenna or a fractal antenna.