[ARC5] Bendix RA-1B receiver

[Mike Hanz]

On 5/12/2014 10:15 PM, AKLDGUY . wrote:
>> Does anyone know where the down=ON came from. It *seems* irrational to me.
>> -John
> American practice of writing dates as 4/22/2014 instead of 22/4/2014
> *seems* a strange hierarchical order and irrational to me, but hey I would
> never make a point of writing that it's fascinating on this group or any
> other.

But don't you see, it *is* fascinating!  For example, I wrote dates as 
22/4/2014 for forty years as a US Navy officer and later as a US Federal 
civil servant.  It was and still is the convention in those American 
micro-societies.  I still instinctively write dates that way most of the 
time, to the consternation of others who seem to be confused by the 
convention.  The fact is that human beings are all a mess of 
contradictions, and I have always been interested in the origins of such 
things, especially if they are technically related somehow.  To me, the 
stories are interesting - fascinating in a humorous sense - but perhaps 
the word fascinating has a different meaning around the world?  To see 
if that might be true, I went first to the AudioEnglish dictionary:

"FASCINATION (noun)
The noun FASCINATION has 3 senses:
1. the state of being intensely interested (as by awe or terror)
2. a feeling of great liking for something wonderful and unusual
3. the capacity to attract intense interest
Familiarity information: FASCINATION used as a noun is uncommon."

The second definition is the one I usually associate with the word, but 
I will admit that the first does strike a threatening chord of which I 
was unaware.  I also wasn't aware of the Familiarity information, as it 
is missing from the usual American dictionaries and doesn't appear to 
have reached the American masses nor Nat King Cole's Great Depression 
song writers.  Not to be daunted, I consulted the Collins English 
Dictionary, published in Glasgow, which has in part:

"Translations for 'fascinate':
British English:  If something fascinates you, it interests and delights 
you so much that your thoughts tend to concentrate on it. "

So it appears that I have some support for a benign translation in my 
use of the word.  I hope that clears up any misunderstanding. For 
applicable disclaimers, please see 
http://www.thepredictiontracker.com/disclaimer.txt

> Vive la deference (sic).

Heh, heh...now *there* is the flash of humor I have learned to expect 
from you, Neil.

Have a wonderful week,
Mike  KC4TOS