Our RV Adventures

The temp was a little hotter today, and the traffic a little heavier, but all in all, not a bad day. I guess except for the fact that when I get groceries this Thursday, it looks like I’ve got to buy a new front TV.

A few days ago, the 32” RCA we have in the front of the rig started losing video. The audio still works fine, but the screen goes black.

At first it might do it once a day, and just turning the TV off and back on fixed the problem. For a while. But over the next few days it got more and more frequent , until now it will only work for a few minutes before the video dies.

When the problem first appeared I thought it might the HDMI input itself, so I switched the cable over to HDMI-2, but the problem still occurred. So I dug out a 3 wire video cable, the one with the Yellow, Red, and White RCA phono connectors and tried that,

Again with the same result. So the problem seems to be in the actual video output stage, and not on the input side. And it doesn’t seem to be a loose connection, since rapping on it doesn’t fix the problem, even temporarily.

Now back in the day, when you could still fix things like this, I’d just order a Sam’s Photofact for the set and tear into it. Using my oscilloscope, I’d trace through the video section until I found the bad component, and then replace it.

Back in the early 90’s I used to contract out to several computer stores in the Houston area to do board level repair on Commodore VIC-20’s, Commodore 64’s, Commodore Amiga’s and Radio Shack TRS-80’s. At that time you could get service info from the manufacturers, and even specific parts, like IC’s and transistors, and you could actually fix something.

But no more. In many cases, depending on the TV, there may be no real parts to replace anyway. Just a couple of large chips that do everything. And without very specialized equipment, it would be almost impossible to safely unsolder the chip and replace it.

And you probably couldn’t even get a replacement chip anyway, since the manufacture won’t sell you one. So now it’s off to Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club for a new one.

We bought both of these TV’s from Sam’s Club when we were in Fairbanks, AK in 2008 to replace the old CRT models that came with the rig, and this is the first problem we’ve had with them, so I guess 8 years is a pretty good record.

After all of this, at least my problem with my DVR randomly rebooting turned out to be a simple fix. The DVR plugs into a AC receptacle on the underside of the cabinets over the dashboard, and I noticed that often the reboots happened as one of us came into the rig and shut the door. Turns out that the AC plug was a little loose in the socket, so I spread the prongs apart, sprayed a little Strike-Hold on it and problem solved.

At least that’s something I could fix.

The Wages of Sin is Death. But the Hours are Good.

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Between a new low vehicle count of only 29, and a high of only 85 degrees, it was a really nice day.

I’ve decided to go back to school. And I’ve been accepted to Harvard. Well, HarvardX anyway, which is Harvard’s online presence.

Over the last few years I’ve seen articles and ads about Khan Academy and edX, Both offer free online courses on hundreds of subjects, pretty much on anything you can think of.

Khan Academy seems to concentrate on general subjects, like Chemistry, Biology, or Electrical Engineering, using their own class materials. They even have math classes for K – 8th grade, that are used by many homeschoolers. And another focus is on test prep for SAT, MCAT, GMAT, and more.

But edX offers actual specific classes from major universities around the country, like MIT, Harvard, UT, and many others. And again, they’re all free. The only possible charge is if you want an actual Verified Certificate or Diploma, which runs about $100.

edX offers two main types of courses, scheduled and self-paced. Scheduled is just like any college course, with a definite start date, and assignments due at a definite time. Self-paced are just that. You can start anytime and work at your own pace. In fact edX lists over 300 self-paced courses.

I thought I’d start off with Introduction to Computer Science, a course given, as I said by Harvard. I figure it would be interesting to get a more recent overview of the subject, since the last time I took a Intro Computer class was 1973, when Jan and I were both back in college.

Jan had to take the Intro class as part of her Medical Records degree curriculum and was worried about it. I had an open period at the same time so I signed up too. We did our programming assignments on an IBM 1170 at the school using punch cards.

My previous Intro class had been in 1966 at Vanderbilt University on a IBM 360 that took up a whole floor of the Science Building, again using punch cards and Fortran IV. But my first actual programming was on a Geniac analog computer that I got for Christmas in 1958 when I was 10.

If you’re anywhere near my age (i.e. ancient) you probably remember ads in magazines like this one

The actual computer looked like this – a Masonite board with six Masonite wheels, and a lot of jumper wires, as well as batteries, light bulbs, and a buzzer.

You wired it up using the jumper wires, and then you could solve simple math problems, guess you age problems, and many others. For me the best thing was that it taught you to logically break a problem down in small pieces and then construct a program to solve it.

At 10 I was already into shortwave radio, collecting SWL cards from all around the world, and studying for my ham radio license, so the Geniac was just another step.

Anyway, after the Intro course, I want to check out some of the newer languages that have come along in the last few years, like C++, C#, and Linux. I programmed in Unix at NASA,, but Linux is a newer version. Then after that, probably Java and Ruby.

Who knows?

For dinner tonight we had our leftover Blue Moon BBQ from yesterday. Since Jan had also fixed us a dessert we found we had leftover leftovers, so we have another meal for tomorrow too.

Tomorrow I’ll put in another call to Wilson about my DBPro cell phone amplifier, and see if I can get it working.

Thought for the Day:

What should you do when 
you see an endangered animal 
eating an endangered plant? – George Carlin

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