I quite remember the day I took possession of the mighty weapon in my hand. Before your imagination runs wild, let me interrupt to say that, I meant the TV remote control. Till such time I was introduced to this technological wonder of that time, I used to grudgingly get up and change channels. Then came this wonder. Thanks to it I changed channels at will without so much as lifting my hand and pointing it towards the screen. I could not help myself saying, “How cool is that”
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In my college days our group were doing a project on industrial automation and I was on home turf building the circuitry using hydraulic cylinders, limit switches, cables and other mechanical parts etc. Because each component of the system was somehow physically connected to the other and it was easy to put a trace on the circuitry, and so was a no-brainer to figure things out. But while our project worked, it looked so mundane compared to others using radio controlled devices, photo sensors etc and hence were perceived to be “so cool.”
Before cable TV came to our neighborhood, every time we moved our residence, three of us were required to ensure proper reception of TV signals. Myself on the terrace assembling the aluminum tubes on a frame, fiddling with it and pointing towards the TV transmission tower, my son on the ground giving me a thumbs up or thumbs down depending on whether my wife can see moving images(crisp and clear) on the screen inside the house. Though I understood very little of the technology behind transmission and reception of TV signals then, I considered myself to be “high tech”, simply because I could get TV signals in my home.
As the years went by I noticed that some kind of a cult status is accorded to even a lowly technician who troubleshoots such a simple thing as a TV remote control, not to speak of fixing wireless keyboard or mouse, wireless networking, Satellite TV. And I wondered, is it because in such things, much of what happens is invisible and behind the screen?
I am sure there are customers like me who would expect and gladly pay top dollar to have such things fixed and remain content to say to ourselves “How cool is that” every time a new toy works in the wireless world. I have always been fascinated by ‘wireless technology’ but was either too busy or too timid to venture into unknown territory. And have I missed the bus in the ‘wireless world’?
But you don’t have to despair like me. With the mighty Internet at your command, there are thousands of web sites that can teach you or point you in the right direction to learn all that you want to learn about wireless technology. For a start you may want to visit www.howstuffworks.com and type in ‘radio or wireless transmission’ and move on from there.
In the Internet world, if you can type, you can learn. How cool is that?
