Re: 'Official' TiPS elsets are very accurate (followup)
Walter Nissen (dk058@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Tue, 19 Aug 1997 20:09:44 -0400 (EDT)
Craig Cholar, 3432P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL writes:
> Jim Varney alluded to the rules that routine Mir sightings shouldn't be
> mentioned here, and I agree, to a point; I think that unusual Mir
> observations should still be mentioned here when warranted, especially
[later]
> feel free to send replies privately. I think I generate too much
> net clutter sometimes.
I'm not having any problem with your posts. I haven't reviewed them to
see if there once was something objectionable, but generally my feeling
is that if we could attract more "clutter" like yours, SeeSat-L would be
even better than it is! (If we are going to have more "clutter", how I
would love to see it include anticipated, post-maneuver elsets for Mir and
shuttles a few days in advance).
There are at least 3 sources of routine OBS reports. Perhaps there are
more. None of the ones I know about are operated as public mailing lists,
but (my ignorance might be showing here) I don't see why they wouldn't be
available to just about anyone who asks. Possibly, they could even be
made available as a regular mailing list(s) with a name like
SeeSat-rawdata, if people think that desirable (especially such people as
the generators and compilers).
(It has occurred to me that it is possible that some other new mailing
lists might draw some support, such as one for just hotnews, or just
decays. I wouldn't suggest these by myself, but mention this in case
others have been thinking the same thing without yet coming forward.)
So, routine reports presumably have a smaller audience than SeeSat-L,
which should be reserved for relatively important posts. But I like to
see a certain number of "ordinary" reports. I must say I certainly
appreciate Leo's reports. We should not ignore the fact that the
appearance of a certain number of less than totally urgent items on
SeeSat-L has important values in a number of ways. If you've tried to
read some of the Usenet ".announce" groups, you probably recognize that
taken alone, they are hardly representative of the thinking and the
activities occurring in their fields of interest.
I would fear, and am very thankful we haven't seen, mind-deadening
repetition, egocentric ranting and raving, and other pathetic pests. Some
amount of conversation is good.
> equipment to be able to do that. Does anybody have recommendations for
> stopwatches and shortwave radios? The radio is needed for picking
I've written here at some length about my experiences with a Casio and a
Timex, both of which are stopwatches in wristwatch format, for about $40,
I think. If you can't find those messages in the SeeSat-L archives and/or
Web, I'll be forced to mount an expeditionary force to head off into the
wilds of my own archives.
For shortwave, be sure to find out which stations best serve your area(s)
at various times of day. In New England, e.g., CHU is pretty consistently
better than WWV. And when reception is poor, don't forget to lengthen or
reposition the antenna. I haven't ever tried it (I assume it is available
on the $5000 communications receivers I can only dream about), but I would
assume that a narrow band audio filter would really make those second
ticks stand out from the background noise that so often plagues HF
reception.
Has any time user tried comparing net-time to better-known accurate
sources, such as WWV or 1-900-410-TIME, to calculate the difference, both
typical and worst-case?
> I don't recall other Seesat subscribers mentioning
> any negative magnitude NOSS passes recently, either.
I've seen dozens of NOSS passes, and I think your report is truly
extraordinary. Almost unbelievable. An object lesson in never getting
too, too confident about "predictions".
Cheers.
Walter Nissen dk058@cleveland.freenet.edu
-81.8637, 41.3735, 256m elevation
---
To thy own self, be true.