I was watching TV during the thunder storm, and it was on digital free to air, and there were pops in the audio when there was lightning. What I cannot understand is why the pops are there. Surely the CODEC (or more correctly the decoder) can work out that there is an interrupted signal, and then turn off the audio before the pop. Is that too simple? Am I just looking at things with too much of an engineering mind? Or is this just the difference between the cheap and expensive boxes?

I was looking for some other photos today and came acorss these ones. These were of some equipment used in EcoChallenge 2002 in New Zealand. I designed some hardware to turn a generator on and off inside the box. This box Iwas a radio repeater system with a number of channels so that people could communicate over the course.

This next photo is of my hardware and the repeater being airlifted in.

As an aside, the owner of the company I did the work for loves to go around in his ‘Survivor’ jacket. This was for the first series of Survivor a few years back in Bornio, where he provided most of the radio communications for the crew. [Believe it or not, there are something like 300 or more crew working on shows like Survivor, and logistics can be a real issue.]. Anyway he loves to comment that he wears the jacket now since borino is far too hot to ever need a jacket, even in the middle of winter!