Hello Rich,
I hope we don't upset others with this continued conversation. If so, please bear with us and simply delete this e-mail.
Yes, it was 'legerdemain', et oui, je comprends 'l¨¦ger' = light(weight, also figurative) et 'demain' = tomorrow, but I could not make any sense of these combined into anything useful ;-)
Now the word 'WRT' popped up in your reply, yet another abbreviation unknown to an ignorant foreigner...
My local Wiki copy produced this, but I guess that's pretty much off the point, despite our radio topic: 'WRT' ('W'ireless 'R'eceiver / 'T'ransmitter).
Of course I do understand what you mean to say. Your term 'simplicate' is spot-on! It's a real pity that there's a continued tendency to keep things superficial, while, in fact, when properly explained, it may be quite fascinating to really get a grasp of what's going on 'behind the scenes', e.g. in common electronic devices or software.
Now get this little anecdote: Not belonging to the PHD 'league' myself, as a young engineer, back in the early 1990s, I had a regular analog quartz watch which I had happened to precisely set acc. to some SW Time Signal station one morning (as I did every other day or so). A PHD also working in my department, a young and very sympathetic guy I knew quite well, had just bought one of these (back then) brand-new radio controlled clocks, with an analog display, and I profoundly admired it at first glance. Without any ulterior motive, I looked at my wrist watch - and looked at the 'atomic' time displayed on the desk - and back again. Then I dared saying to him: Thomas, your clock is 1 second off, in fact, ahead of the actual time. He grinned at me, sure that I must obviously have been mistaken, saying 'that's not possible, Tobias, it's set automatically by the radio signal of DCF77, our precise official time signal, which might be off by a second in about a million years, but certainly not now'. Quite aware of DCF77, yet being quite sure of my case and sensing a fun challenge in our different assessments, I insisted. 'I know, but your clock is off by a second anyway!', so he replied: 'OK, I'll show you how it works...'. He took out the battery, put it back in and the hands started to rotate quickly, preparing the auto-calibration sequence. Rattling clock hands continued their rotation, until the hour and minute hands finally settled at 12:00, the perfectly parallel intended position (for the next auto-setting step), but - the second hand only stopped after reaching second '01'. It was, in fact, one full second off! We looked at each other and began to laugh. We now understood that both of us had been right, in a way. The actual issue had been caused in the final assembly of the second hand, so Thomas quickly pulled it off and placed it back at the correct position. We both had our lessons learned, and with a good laugh, continued our business day, assured that our timepieces now were perfectly in phase, literally to the split second...
Jumping to conclusions may be affected by our own level of experience and actual knowledge of the case, but not necessarily right, regardless of how convinced of our opinion we may be. Some DigiModes may appear easy to identify, but there are so many different ones today, some looking virtually identical in the waterfall (e.g. some Olivia and Contestia modes, or various modes with and without an FEC option), that I would rather not attempt to predict which one it is until a positive ID and decoding result is actually achieved.
Another quick one, somewhat 'radio related': after about 20 years of reliable service, my good old SONY ICF-2001D radio tuning knob started getting tight and finally the binding almost prevented manual tuning. Gently pulling it out within the small axial clearance helped somewhat, thus I was convinced that internally, the axial bearing / limitation must have been worn out to a point that any rotary movements had become mechanically challenging because some inner part, due to the shifted shaft position, must have started to cause excessive friction. So I adopted a manner of using it as little as possible and typed in frequencies most of the time instead. Months later, in a local store, I saw a little bottle of clear acid-free oil and, as things appeared to slowly get even worse over time, I dared pulling off the plastic knob and put a tiny droplet of oil in the RADIAL bearing clearance (I could not even get to the assumed worn axial part). Guess what: ever since, the knob does a perfect job again, just like it was when I first bought the radio, back in 1990. I was completely off with my stubborn assessment of an axial issue, and a drop of oil in the ACTUAL 'problem area' would have prevented lots of trouble and concerns right away. I had not even considered that my only idea, that it was an internal bearing issue, was utterly wrong...
That should give you an idea of how I see things by now, in a way ;-)
Thanks and 73s
Tobias
.-.-.
