Reconnected

[rejectomorph]

Furious wind and a downpour battering the roof woke me up about six o'clock this morning, but by the time I dragged myself out from under the warm blankets half an hour later it had calmed down to a drizzle with occasional breezy gusts. Shortly after what passed for sunrise it got foggy, and visibility dropped to about six hundred feet. I was hoping it would get foggier, but it didn't. The rain is now just intermittent sprinkles, and though the wind kicks up now and then it is mostly still. This afternoon there is a possibility of a thunderstorm, but thunderstorms usually aren't very intense here in the winter, so I probably won't lose my electricity.

I did lose the Internets earlier today. It's been happening quite often of late, so I finally called AT&T and after some testing discovered that the DSL filter had gone bad. Once the filter was removed and the router connected directly to the cable that is connected to Sluggo, who is connected to the phone jack, the connection came back, and it is now working fine— well, working as usual, at least, because fine is a bit too strong a word for the usual service. But the telephone in this room is now disconnected until I can get a replacement filter. The AT&T tech guy said that DSL filters have a life expectancy of about a year, which rather surprised me as a couple of the filters that came with my earlier router are still working on other phone jacks in the house, and they are over five years old.

Because I woke up so early today, after only about five hours of sleep, I'll probably end up taking a nap this afternoon. I'm feeling a little bit punchy right now, in fact. I'm sure there's something on television that will put me to sleep, but I hope I don't end up sleeping until dark. The winter nights are long enough as it is.

Comments

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

I didn't know DSL needed filters! How interesting. Outages are a pain in the backside, that's for sure.

Hey, I saw a great Hubble shot of our old pal Orion today. I ought to go look for it, if I can crank up the energy.

[rejectomorph]

When an analog device such as a telephone shares a line with a digital device like a router there has to be a filter to prevent them from interfering with each other. Something to do with different frequencies. Wikipedia has an article.

I saw Orion tonight. Here, he'll probably vanish behind clouds again by tomorrow night.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. The world of circuitry and currents of various kinds is very foreign to me. ;)

Orion. What a guy.

[zyzyly.livejournal.com]

I too didn't know they needed filters. I wonder what gunks them up that they need replacing. "Yup this one is full of pixels--gonna need a new one."

[rejectomorph]

The filters contain capacitors, resistors, and such, and they probably just get worn out from the constant stream of electrons running through them. My filters are the cheap kind, so I guess it's to be expected that they wouldn't hold up very long. The ones on the other lines don't have the router traffic running through them, though, which is probably why they have lasted longer. They are only in use while the telephone is in use.