Anorak Part 2 incl Parking Tickets

Thanks for all comments to my last post. Comments are surprisingly gratifying. All of them.

Yes, I do have a few "dysfunctional" aspects to my character. I'm disgustingly happy, though. Fortunately, my friends seem tolerant.

 I think if I had OCD though, it would all be a lot tidier!

I've always been into electronics, I repair stuff for a living, and I tinker for fun.  I shop around and get the stuff cheap, second-hand. I love my Transit, although I don't often need the load space.

I can do it. I can afford to do it. I want to do it. Why would I not do it?

I'm from an age when "Bass" meant turning the tone control down on the Dansette record player, losing the treble. So I was deprived of bass as a child. :-)

You can't play this kind of bass power at home, if you have neighbours. An hour a day driving through open country though, I can indulge beyond reason.

The point?

I, me, - I love to feel the bass kick and thunder and growl and shudder. It's a dimension of music. Some people are wine nuts, some read poetry.

Pic 7? Yes, I was losing track. Note the post-its on the amps. I kept swopping amp-speaker combinations to find the best match.

The new van is much more tidy, having learned a lot from the first and started again from scratch. I'll post about it soon, for those who are interested or just amused. I can be mind-numbingly boring on the subject, everyone assures me.

My crucial new discovery? The "class D", (pulse width modulation), type of amplifier. Usually called "monoblock" (or "digital"), for no good reason. If you want a LOT of bass in a vehicle, do NOT consider anything else.

And ignore the watts rating if it’s not “watts RMS”. If in doubt, multiply the fuse (amps) rating by 14.4(volts). That’s the watts you cannot sustain without blowing the fuse.

PARKING TICKETS-

And finally, The parking tickets! I'm back in court on Monday 2nd August for tickets 26, 27, 28. We're on the fourth incarnation of the double yellow lines, the council has repainted them three times. I'll win again, and they'll repaint them again. They'll then be perfect. I'll park there again. I'll get more tickets.

Then, and only then, I'll reveal that the lines shouldn't be there. They are 24 metres long, but should be 15 metres. The bit I park on is not included. Gotcha.

The council will then shorten them, and I'll do a moony at the spiteful bitch opposite who keeps reporting me for parking where she can see my common, ugly van.

She started when she moved in, about 5 years ago. (I've lived on this street since 1956.)

It's very difficult to become my enemy. People need to be attack me persistently and effectively to achieve that distinction. Casual taunts in comments are probably deserved, and are not unwelcome.

Zaphod.

Anorak's Corner

ANORAK'S CORNER

You were warned.

Everyone should have a hobby.

After borrowing SH's  fancy car one day, I was then a bit dissatisfied with the sounds in my van. SH's bass, standard merc fitting, made the wing mirrors vibrate. I wanted some of that. I looked in the second-hand ads, got a 12inch sub and amp. Nice. So I got another.

You hear these boy racers driving past, going "boom, boom, boom", and think, "Wanker". Yeah, I know. But I've got a half hour drive to work, on open roads. It's the only time I can wind up the volume. That's my excuse. When the boy racer gets his girlfriend pregnant, she says "That's got to go, I can't get the pram in the boot". So I buy it cheap.

I've now got fourteen 12inch speakers installed, each with its own amp. Plus two ten inch, two 6 x 9's, four tweeters. A length of cooker cable from the battery to a consumer switch unit in the back, extra batteries, two power caps. (I'm not sure I believe in the caps, but they were going cheap).

I've got, but not installed yet, six 10inch, two 8inch, four 6 x 9's, and several spare amps.

I'm running out of power now. I guess I've got to install another alternator.

I also have to unship all the cabs when I need to carry a load. So I've installed four 12's outside, in the top of one back door, with a big box sticking out. I can fit eight 12's in each door with that trick. But it's a lot of work, and the MOT is due soon. Will it pass this one?

So maybe its time to let this van die, start work on another. The Transit shape has changed, so my cabinet work is not transferrable.

In my defence, I don't associate with other car sound loonies. It's not a social thing. I've dipped into the websites, but they all talk bollocks. I know about electronics and physics, I don't believe in oxygen-free cable and crystal therapy. A watt is an amp multipled by a volt. Volts is amps times resistance. I'm pulling 150 amps from my alternator, (and it glows).

If you're still reading, you're as weird as me. Guess I'd better do some pics. It's all a bit of a mess, a work in progress. Experimental. Well, it's something to do in tea-break. Mumble, excuses. Er.

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This post is now obsolete. I got another van and I’ve started again! I’m doing it all a bit tighter now, so it’ll take a while. But I’m posting this anyway. Have a laugh at the pics. Yeah, it’s messy, but it’s a work-in-progress.  J