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More HD experiments

Living with an electrical engineer is always…interesting. I’m also an engineer, but my desire to tinker is more software-oriented than hardware, whereas Damir likes to build things. After our initial experiments with the HD TV antenna that we bought for $35, he started researching on the web, and ended up building three other HD antennae.

HD antenna 2.0 - the first homebuildFirst up was actually the most expensive of the home-builds, since he bought heavy-gauge wire instead of using the coathangers suggested in the YouTube video that inspired it. It was mounted on a piece of Ikea shelving that we had lying around (if it had been the final version, we would have trimmed it back just to a single wooden stick), and consisted of the above-mentioned copper wire ($13), a TV matching transformer (needed on all the antennae to convert the signal to the coax connection to go to the TV, $1) and some screws for that shelving that we already had. With no amplification, it worked as well as the commercial one that is amplified, although we couldn’t find the sweet spot that allowed us to get all 7 HD channels — or at least the 5 that we care about — without moving it around. Also, it could have put out someone’s eye.

HD antenna 3.0 designThat night, he took his copy of the ARRL handbook to bed to brush up on his antenna theory.

The next model, a discone model, never made it past the early prototype stage. Shown here is the cone part (he was still working on the disc part), which would have been covered with aluminum foil. He later found this to not be the right type anyway, but he had fun making (and wearing) the cones.

More research ensued.

HD TV antenna 4.0The 3rd version, a.k.a. HD antenna 4.0, is what we’re sticking with for now. It’s made of two sections cut from aluminum foil (yes, the type from the kitchen) taped to an old wooden ruler. The sections are connected on one side by a 390 ohm resistor (4 for $0.25), and on the other by the TV matching transformer. You can see a close-up of the construction in an earlier phase when he was trying it out on a larger board here; he calculated the exact size of the foil pieces from his antenna theory textbook. Technically, it’s a T2FD antenna.

The antenna-on-a-ruler is attached with 2-sided sticky pads to an old wooden salad server, then mounted on an unused tripod to allow us to easily move it around to find the right spot.

With this configuration, we get the five main HD digital channels that we wanted without moving the antenna: CBC, CTV, CityTV, Global and Sun TV. We can also get Omni 1 and Omni 2 if we move it around, but we rarely watch those so aren’t concerned about it.

Keep in mind that we are less than 1km from the CN Tower, but are west of Spadina and face west, so we’re bouncing our signals off the surrounding buildings. When we tried our Philips antenna (the one that we bought) at a neighbour’s place that has a clear line of sight to the tower, it picked up 7 or 8 HD channels with no fiddling, and several VHF channels as well (since her TV used a single feed for both analog and digital tuners).

I’ve now cancelled our Rogers cable, which will take effect mid-August. The only remaining thing is to use the (currently unused) Philips antenna as a VHF antenna to pick up the lower-range analog channels and feed them to the DVR (which has no digital tuner) and then on to the TV via the HDMI connection — if we get any decent reception on VHF, that will allow us to watch and record those channels.

2008 07 18 home
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Blogging from the Wii

Okay, I don’t think that I’m going to do this very often, but I just have to prove that I can. Tonight, I downloaded the Internet Channel to my Wii (500 Wii points = $5), and I have a fully-functional Opera browser. So here I am in WordPress, typing a blog post on my Wii. I cheated a bit and am using a USB keyboard attached to the back — the thought of doing this one character at a time using the Wiimote was just too much for me.

It seems to enter carriage returns in this entry field okay, but links didn’t work when I entered the HTML code.

2008 07 16 technology Comments (0) Permalink

Book review: Stuck in Downward Dog

My first book to review from MiniBookExpo, and I picked a light “chick-lit” read to complement the summer weather: Stuck in Downward Dog. Chantel Simmons’ debut novel is a pleasant, humourous read about Mara Brennan, a mid-20’s woman who hits a rough patch — job, boyfriend, apartment, friends — and gets through it while learning something about herself and her friends.

There were a lot of things that I liked about this book. First of all the Toronto setting was used well, and there were great insider references, such as when Mara’s friend tried to pass off her new Mississauga location as “Port Credit” (an accurate place name, but to anyone who lives in the 416 area code, it’s all just undifferentiated suburban wilderness). I was pleasantly surprised to find out that a new boyfriend does not figure in her miraculous turnaround — in fact, Mara does it pretty much on her own, with a bit of help from her friends. There’s a nutritional epiphany about a healthy-sounding smoothie. There’s some great inner monologues of Mara’s thoughts during yoga class.

There were parts of the storyline that could have been improved. First, Mara spends 25 years getting herself into a complete disaster of a life, including the worst two months of it chronicled in the first part of the book, then manages to turn the entire thing around in 3 weeks. A bit unrealistic, considering that she comes off as a bit of a naive pushover. The two girlfriends were painted as cruel caricatures; if they were really such bitches, I can’t believe that Mara, pushover that she is, would have been best buds with them all this time. She refers to her size 10 body as if it were bordering on obese, which is not a great message to be sending to her target audience, even if they are pigging out on those calorie-laden smoothie.

In spite of its flaws, I found Stuck in Downward Dog to be a fun read with lots of laughs, and may even be inspirational to young women who are looking for the courage to find the right job, the right apartment and the right relationship with their friends.

2008 07 14 books Comments (1) Permalink

HD OTA experiments

An online conversation with a few friends last week got me thinking harder about something that’s been on my mind lately: is it possible to get rid of my Rogers cable subscription, and get TV signals the old-fashioned way: with an antenna? This is now referred to as “OTA” (over the air) for those in the know, and there’s a whole range of digital HD channels that you can pick up in addition to the old familiar analog ones.

We already had pared back to the most basic analog cable plan, with no desire for several hundred channels of additional crap that we wouldn’t watch at additional cost, and when we got the Wii a few weeks ago, our TV watching dropped to less than an hour per day on average. We rent movies a couple times a month, read a lot of books, and, of course, there’s the internet: a vast library of fascinating material in a variety of formats. Although the US networks and Hulu block viewing of full TV episodes from Canada, some of our networks do show full episodes online of a few programs, such as Mad Men on CTV.

So, for the cost of one month of our basic cable, we picked up a Philips indoor DTV/HDTV antenna to see how OTA would work for us. We live near Richmond and Spadina, in a west-facing apartment on a low floor: that means that we face away from the CN Tower, source of most OTA signals in the Toronto area (although within 1km of it) and have a lot of taller buildings in the way.

We plugged in the antenna to the DTV port on our TV, scanned for channels, and wham! There was CBC in beautiful HD, completely without distortion. A few hours of playing around, and we found 6 additional channels, including CTV and Global, which syndicate many of the popular US shows during evening prime time. Here’s the rundown of what we can receive:

Station DTV channel Zap2It channel
CBC (CBLT) 5 5
CTV (CFTO) 9 9
Omni 2 (CJMT) 44 69
City TV 57 57
Omni 1 (CFMT) 64 47
Global (CIII) 65 6
Sun TV (CKXT) 66 45

The Zap2It channel is the corresponding channel if you use Zap2It for TV listings, and select Toronto - Local Broadcast as the source: I set my preferences on that site so that I see a grid of only these stations, in this order, as my TV guide.

Unfortunately, we haven’t found a single position that brings in all channels: CBC, Global and CTV seem to be best when bounced off the top of a taller building to the southwest of us, while SunTV is best reflected from the building directly across the road. CityTV and the two OMNI stations are picked up when the antenna is pointed directly towards the tower, that is, through our building. We’re still experimenting, and need a longer cable so that we can try some other locations within our apartment. If we lived in a higher or south-facing unit, I’m sure that the results would be radically different, and we might even pick up some Buffalo stations across the lake if we were high enough, but this is good enough for our TV-watching habits.

2008 07 11 culture
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Argentine Malbecs in Ontario

I don’t blog for the Australian Wine Society any more, but I still like to lift a glass, and I subscribe to the excellent winecurrent.com newsletter that provides reviews of wines just before their release at the LCBO. On July 5th, a number of Malbecs from Argentina were released, and here’s the ones reviewed by winecurrent.com, with an excerpt from their review:

Finca El Origen Reserva Malbec 2006, Uco Valley, Mendoza $14.95 (065664): “Easy-drinking red that provides good value.”

Finca Flichman ‘Gestos’ Malbec 2007, Mendoza $15.95 (068999): “Complex and alluring…enough tannin for structure and interest plus generous acidity for impeccable balance; the 8 months of French oak has been seamlessly integrated. Give thought to a multiple purchase.”

Finca Flichman Reserva Malbec 2007, Mendoza $12.95 (746727): “rich and ready to drink…serve with all manner of backyard BBQ fare.”

Finca Sophenia Reserve Malbec 2006, Tupungato, Mendoza $16.95 (066837): “chunky mouthful of ripe fruit flavours—cherry, currant and cranberry—oodles of moderating acidity and still perceptible tannin. Temper this with a two-hour aeration/decant then serve alongside a rare to medium-rare grilled strip loin.”

Navarro Correas Gran Reserva Malbec 2005, Mendoza $18.95 (028928): “one of those Wow! wines that immediately grabs your attention with its great balance, delectable fruit-forward flavours and lengthy finish.”

Weinert Malbec 2003, Mendoza $18.95 (556795): “round n’ ready to go, but is certainly not without class or complexity.”

You can also see the LCBO’s reviews of the Argentine Malbecs here.

2008 07 10 food & wine Comments (0) Permalink

Wii Workout: Day 7

Whoever said that you can’t get fit on a Wii Fit never tried the Expert level of Rhythm Boxing, or even Super Hula Hoops: 2 minutes into the 10-minute boxing session, the sweat is running down my back. You can get fit with this, and I’m on a mission to drop some weight and get fit over the summer while my travel schedule is light.

The Wii Fit journey started in late May, when we scored one for my mom for her 85th birthday and had a fun weekend at their place trying it out; a week ago when we returned from holidays, we picked up one for ourselves. After having to reset the first few days of results due to an error in setting the original date (the Wii does not shift the date of your results when you change the date on the device, making for some weirdnesses: get it right the first time), we’re now on day 7 of using the Wii Fit.

One big benefit is the daily body test: each day, you can check your weight and balance — the Wii uses balance as a measure of your fitness — and track your weight and BMI on a graph. That lets me see, for example, that I’ve dropped 2 pounds in the 7 days that I’ve been using it, which is very encouraging. My BMI indicates that I’m over the line from “normal” into “overweight”, and my goal is to get that back into the normal range, which is only 6 pounds away at this point, and further into the range to be close to the ideal BMI of 22.

The Wii Fit gradually unlocks the full range of exercises available as you accumulate time, and I have most activities unlocked (except for some of the strength exercises, which I’m not using yet); some activities also have basic, advanced and expert levels within them, so there’s even more variation that you might guess from the initial menus.

Although I do want to work on strength eventually, my morning workout current consists of about 30 minutes of aerobics — a combination of the advanced step class and rhythm boxing to get both the upper and lower body working — and 30 minutes of yoga once the muscles are warm from the aerobics. The yoga positions are really good, since most of them are done on the Wii balance board, and correct your position by noting when you’re off balance. It has a demo for each yoga position, telling you what muscles to contract and how to do the move, and an on-screen instructor does the pose with you. I’ve had pain in my left shoulder for several months now, and the yoga is helping it a lot.

There’s also balance games, which are fun and do help improve your balance and therefore build up some of your core muscles, but not really a workout: I use these mostly when I want to take a break from my desk.

The real advantage for me is the ability to do all this in my living room: although there’s a gym in our condo building, I rarely use it since even the minimal hassle of going down there seems too much, and takes me away from my phone in case of a client call if I’m working out during business hours. Also, the Wii is just a lot more fun.

2008 07 08 health Comments (1) Permalink

MiniBookExpo for Bloggers

Wow, it’s been over 3 months since I posted here: work and travel have taken up most of my time. I have a ton of billable work to do over the summer, but there’s always time for reading. A couple of years ago, I rediscovered the Toronto Public Library, which was a godsend for me when I was young, providing me with an endless source of books to feed my voracious reading habit. Now, they have their catalogue online, and I can order a book from anywhere in this huge system and have it appear at my local branch.

This week, I saw a link to MiniBookExpo for Bloggers, which promises to be another source of interesting books. They list books that are available for review from the publishers, you add a comment to the post about the book in order to claim it, they send you the book, and you review it. Shipping is free, and there’s nothing about having to return the books, so I can pass them along to the book collection in my condo, or even donate them to the public library if I can figure out how to do that. Looking forward to receiving my first book for review!

2008 07 07 books Comments (0) Permalink

What did Earth Hour do for us?

I’ve heard a lot of criticism of Earth Hour over the past few days, mainly that it was a token public effort by people who aren’t really committed to any permanent change. Whether that’s true or not can’t be determined from last night’s behaviour alone, although I have read that some local businesses were using this as a test for how they can reduce their energy consumption on a regular basis while still maintaining safety standards.

In looking at last night’s behaviour specifically, consider the expected power demand curve for today (Sunday) in Ontario: pretty low at 8am when I grabbed these from the Ontario Wholesale Electricity Demand and Price Information site, expected to climb before noon as people start to make lunch and do laundry, then increase to a peak around 8pm when the sun has just set, the dishwasher is on after dinner, and people settle down to the TV or computer for a couple of hours. The green curve is actual demand, the darker step graph is the projected demand, and these guys are usually pretty accurate.

Projected Ontario power consumption

Now here’s what happened yesterday, which included Earth Hour at 8pm (20 on the horizontal axis):

Ontario power consumption during Earth Hour

I wished that I had captured the projected demand curve earlier in the day for comparison, but I suspect that the expected curve would have been much like today’s graph shown at the top. We see a higher demand midday than today, due to more businesses open on Saturday than Sunday, but then an interesting phenomenon: long before Earth Hour starts at 8pm, power consumption drops off, and stays well below the midday peak for the remainder of the evening, even after Earth Hour completed at 9pm.

So what’s the story here? This is only my hypothesis, but I think that businesses and individuals started lowering their power consumption much earlier in the day (around 3pm, when the usual evening demand would normally start to build) and maintained the lower power levels longer than the designated hour (until 10:30, when the usual evening demand would normally start to drop off) because of the awareness that Earth Hour raised; in other words, Earth Hour actually had an impact seven to eight times longer than planned.

During the actual hour of 8-9pm, a lot of us were sitting around in the dark or out on the street gawking at the lack of lights in some of the buildings, but what were we doing all afternoon until 8pm, and after 9pm, that also made a difference? Obviously, we were all going about our normal Saturday lives, but somehow using much less energy than usual. That gives me hope that this isn’t just a placebo, and we can reduce energy consumption if we take yesterday’s lessons to heart.

2008 03 30 toronto Comments (0) Permalink

What’s the Difference?

Damir and I recently volunteered for a video project with my talented photographer friend Rannie (who also did my headshots) for SXSW called 20 x 2. We just sat on the couch, he did all the work.


20 x 2 : What’s The Difference? from photojunkie on Vimeo.

Rannie was looking for 10 straight and 10 gay couples; when I asked Damir if he wanted to participate, he said “we’d be one of the straight couples, right?” :)

2008 03 11 photography Comments (2) Permalink

Amuse Bouche redux

After my last visit to Amuse Bouche, I commented on how Damir referred to the chef’s tasting menu as the "Fear Factor" menu, and how the time before, we had to stop at the pub on the way home for him to have more to eat, so this time I decided to go with two women who both love to cook rather than one hungry man who is quite happy with the burger and beer special.

It was my friend Pat’s birthday, and my sister Betty and I treated her to dinner at Amuse Bouche, which neither of them had visited before. We quickly decided on the 7-course chef’s tasting menu, and asked for complementary wines to accompany each course.

First, we were served an amuse bouche (not one of the 7 courses) of a smoked white chocolate and lobster bisque-like mouthful, charmingly presented in an espresso cup. Creamy and sweet, a great start on a cold winter night.

The first of four appetizers was horse carpaccio (that’s thinly-sliced raw horsemeat for those of you unfamiliar with the fine points of eating Black Beauty), topped with dots of sheep and cows milk cheese and truffle oil. Once I moved past the psychological barrier of eating horse — which I was surprised to find lurking in my psyche — it was delicious: the meat is very dark red, like game, very lean yet quite mild in flavour.

Appetizer #2 was smoked trout chopped into tiny cubes, and served with equal-sized cubes of tomato and croutons. At one end of the plate was a peeled cherry tomato; at the other was a similar-sized ball of what turned out to be deep-fried mayonnaise in crust — quite delicious, and an interesting contrast to the other flavours and textures on the plate.

Third was fois gras, which I predicted as soon as the waiter brought us the wines, a muscat with a wonderful blend of acidity and sweetness. There was a cube of pear gelee on the plate, a nice complement to the fois gras, and a third food that I can’t even recall, I was so blown away by the perfect crispy finish on the fois gras that remained pink inside. Actually, I think the third one was crispy onions of some sort, but seriously, the fois gras just dominated that course for me.

Fourth was a square of haddock and one perfect little clam; I could have eaten a bowl of those clams without blinking.

We had a pause before the main course, and a palate cleanser of a tiny ball of passion fruit ice, sweet and tart in just the right balance.

The main was lamb, a loin cut I believe, roasted rare and served on an eggplant puree. It was accompanied by a prune stuffed with chopped hazelnuts and Cabrales (a Spanish blue cheese), something that I will definitely be attempting to replicate at home as hors d’oeuvres. Also with it was a tiny perfect white turnip, about the size of a small radish. The perfect amount of meat after four appetizers (and knowing that we still had a cheese course and dessert to go), although I could have used a touch more veg on the plate.

The cheese course was a savory panna cotta, and although I don’t know what cheese was used in it, it was delicious: served in a small funnel shaped glass, I turned my spoon around and used the small handle to dig the last bits of it out of the bottom (which I felt was infinitely classier than using my finger).

Lastly was dessert, the only course where the three of us were served different selections: a rum and raisin creme brulee, a chocolate marizipan mousse with espresso ice cream, and a passion fruit and meringue tart. All three were delicious.

I remember none of the wines by name except the Cave Springs "Dolomite" Riesling that we were served with the second appetizer, but I do recall that they were a good match for each course. I just checked their wine list online, and none of the wines look familiar, including the Cave Spring which I know that we had, so it might not be completely up to date. They have a nice selection from a number of countries, with a good representation from Canada including some from Thirty Bench, a great little winery in the Niagara region that sends me cases of wine on subscription.

My overall recommendation: this remains a great "special occasion" restaurant, and I highly recommend the chef’s tasting menu with the matching wines. The service is very good but not at all intrusive, although we had trouble hearing one of the waiters when he described the dish that he brought to our table and had to ask him to repeat it. We spent over 3 hours at dinner, and never felt either rushed or like we were waiting around, although I’m glad that we were about to start our main course when a party of 10 — which fills half the restaurant — showed up, since I’m sure that their orders swamped the kitchen after that. By then, however, we were on to the cheese and dessert, both of which require minimal preparation.

2008 03 02 food & wine Comments (0) Permalink