IEEE Consultants' Network of Long Island

Ceramic Floor Tiles - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Does anyone recognize this ceramic floor tile and know where more of these can be purchased?

This ceramic tile dates from 1983. I have searched several tile suppliers here on Long Island, but none of them have anything even close to this item nor any idea where to obtain any.

Suggestions??

TWA Flight 800, Twenty-One Years Later - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

In 1996, TWA Flight 800 exploded shortly after takeoff while bound for Europe. The cause of the explosion is generally believed to have been from a fuel tank.

Some days later, I was working on some particular project but thoughts of that disaster were running through my mind. An idea suddenly came to me about what might have caused such an explosion. I stopped what I'd been doing and immediately telephoned the FAA. I shortly  found myself in a discussion with one Robert Swaim to whom I offered some thoughts and I followed up that discussion with an e-mail, part of which is reproduced here:

My suggestion was that the fuel tank wiring could carry RF energy from some passenger's cell phone into the fuel tank itself within which the tank's fuel gauge probe could act as an antenna feeding a waveguide, setting up standing waves inside the tank with high enough field strength to ionize a fuel-air mixture and thus set of an explosion.

Although Bob told me the tank had bypass capacitors on each wire passing through the tank's sheet metal shell, I suggested that those capacitors could have self resonant frequencies lower than that of the incoming RF in which case they would appear inductive and might not be effective bypasses at all.

Bob grasped my point and thanked me for opening up a new avenue of investigation of the matter,

Now we go fast forward and take a look at "National Transportation Safety Board, Investigation Into Trans World Airlines Flight 800" at the following URL:  Investigation Report 

What this report presents is utterly shocking.

I counted seventeen photographs of aircraft wiring defects that defy any personal expectations I might have once held. There are illustrated issues not just with 747 aircraft but with other aircraft (A300, 737, 767) as well.

Just two of those photographs are as follows:

Other photographs in this report show burned wire, connector damage caused by hydraulic fluid, chafed insulation, loose metal shavings and other wiring horrors.

Regarding Flight 800 itself, I do not subscribe to conspiracy theories. I do not believe for example that the plane was shot down. What I do believe however is that safety issues up to the time of that tragedy were very much in need of remedy.

The TWA crash was in 1996 while the latest date cited in the above report is 2001. Since then, the NTSB has concluded its investigation. Please see: NTSB Conclusion

However, I am led to ask the key question:

The TWA tragedy aside, what the h..... had been going on in the aviation industry in general and what has since been done about it?

Leaf Burn - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Some while back, I described how the lensing effect of wet cloth can increase the risk of severe sunburn. Beads of water in the cloth's mesh will act as little magnifying glasses and focus incoming sunlight into lots of very small but very high intensity dots. Please see: Risk of Sunburn 

Yesterday, I heard a lecture at the Bonsai Society of Greater New York (BSGNY), presented by Mauro Stemberger, International Bonsai Master. His website is:  Italian Bonsai Dream

In the course of the lecture, he mentioned that with any plant, bonsai or not, one should not in bright sunlight apply any materials to leaves or needles which, with an uneven surface, can act on incoming sunlight as a collection of lenses, focusing that sunlight into a multitude very high intensity dots and causing leaf damage very much like to the skin damage I had earlier described.

If needed, such materials should only be applied in shade.

A second caution offered by Mr. Stemberger is not to apply anything that will clog the leaves' pores and block the exchange of moisture with the surrounding air.

 

The IRS Scam Is Still With Us - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Caller ID:          

Unavailable

877-235-7697

April 13, 2017    3:17 PM

A woman's recorded voice

...call is officially a final notice from IRS, Internal Revenue Service.The reason of this call is to inform you that IRS is suing a lawsuit on your name because you have tried to do a fraud with the IRS Internal Revenue Service and we are taking a legal action and we are issuing an arrest warrant on your name. To get more information regarding this case file just call us back on our department number 877-235-7697. I will repeat it. 877-235-7697. Thank you.   

IEEE Alias E-Mail Failures, Part 2 - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

I ran a test of this problem by sending out fifty-one e-mails all to "@ieee.org" addresses from my distribution list. This time only one e-mail bounced back with the "Too many hops" issue.

I forwarded that result to IEEE and got the following response:

I replied to the above as follows:

From: John Dunn [mailto:jdunn4@optonline.net] On Behalf Of ambertec@ieee.org
Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2017 12:51 AM
To: 'IEEE Support Center'
Cc: Vince Socci; socci@ieee.org; r.tabroff@ieee.org; Members LICN
Subject: RE: Delivery Failures to IEEE E-Mail Alias Addresses [Reference #: 170405-000716]

Hi, Stanley.

The Steve.Price@ieee.org address may be invalid, but the lrensela@ieee.org address which came back “Too many hops” before did not bounce  back in my test which makes me think that there is some other, as yet unresolved,  issue afoot as well.

I will be alert from here going forward. If I see any more “Too many hops” messages coming back to me, I will pass that on to you.

Thank you for looking into this.

All the best.

John D.

516-378-0979

This will bear watching as time goes by.

IEEE Alias E-Mail Failures - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

E-mails being sent to some IEEE alias addresses are not getting through. I have contacted IEEE who have denied responsibility for the problem, seeking instead to blame my ISP here on Long Island which is Optimum.

I have discovered that denial to be improper.

I asked my son to try sending an e-mail for me via his own ISP which is Time Warner Cable in Manhattan, NY City. He got the same result as I did.

This problem is not confined to just the one intended recipient above. It is also happening with attempts to send e-mails to other IEEE alias addresses as follows:

Some messages to IEEE alias addresses do seem to be getting through, but a good number of them are not. Therefore, if you yourself are experiencing anything similar, I ask that you also contact IEEE to report that.

IEEE Support Center:   SupportCenter@ieee.org

 

Please now see:  Part 2