Christmas Quiz 2007: answers

Here are the answers:

1. How do you spell Marconi's first name?

A. Guglielmo
B. Guiseppe
C. Guaglione
D. Jade

A. Guglielmo.

It's pronounced Julie-aymo.

2. Where was the wartime transmitter known as Aspidistra located?

A. Orfordness
B. Alexandra Palace
C. Ottringham
D. Crowborough

D. Crowborough.

3. What does a tetrode have that a triode does not?

A. A control grid
B. A national grid
C. A screen grid
D. A suppressor grid

C. A screen grid.

4. What is a three-legged fuse?

A. A thermistor
B. An accountant (male)
C. A thyratron
D. A transistor

D. A transistor.

5. Assuming SD is 720 pixels per line, a 1080i HD picture has

A. 5 times as many pixels as 480i and 5 times as many as 576i
B. 5 times as many pixels as 480i and 6 times as many as 576i
C. 6 times as many pixels as 480i and 5 times as many as 576i
D. 6 times as many pixels as 480i and 6 times as many as 576i

C. 6 times as many pixels as 480i and 5 times as many as 576i

1080 x 1920 = 6 x 720 X 480 = 5 x 720 x 576 = 2073600.

6. If your national distribution network goes tits-up on the hottest day
of the year, what is most likely to blame?

A. ICE
B. Cable and Wireless's air conditioning
C. Sunspots
D. RBS

B. Cable and Wireless's air conditioning

7. 6500K is

A. Colour temperature of correctly-aligned colour monitor
B. Colour temperature of dichroic halogen lamp
C. Colour temperature of tri-phosphor fluorescent lamp
D. Average freelance's annual income

A. Colour temperature of correctly-aligned colour monitor

Tri-phosphor fluorescent lamps are available with several colour
temperatures including 6500K, but fortunately everyone chose A.

8. What kind of connector does a 3-pin male XLR mate with

A. A shaver connector
B. A BS4343 connector
C. A kettle connector
D. A Musa connector

A. A shaver connector

BS4343 connectors are 16A and 32A mains connectors for outdoor use, blue
for 240V and yellow for 110V.

9. You are in a short-wave transmitting station and suddenly all the
transmitters shut down one-by-one because of reflectometer trips. What
do you do?

A. Log the bird strikes against the antennas for the RSPB's survey.
B. Reduce power until the idiot farmer's bonfire upwind has burnt out.
C. Nothing. It'll save electricity anyway. Just report it to Bush.
D. Report the interference to the Radio Investigation Service.

B. Reduce power until the idiot farmer's bonfire upwind has burnt out.

Smoke reduces the dielectric strength of the air, resulting in
flashovers on antennas and open-wire feeders.

10. You are trying to fix an old Sonifex cart machine in order to rescue
a recording that someone found on an old cart and isn't available on
anything better. It works but there is bad flutter. What do you do?

A. Change the knackered capstan
B. Change the knackered record/repro head
C. Change the knackered solenoid
D. Change the knackered pinch roller

D. Change the knackered pinch roller

Sonifex made what were arguably the best cart machines. Their success
was largely due to their using a motor rather than a solenoid to swing
the pinch roller against the capstan. The pinch roller was made of
rubber and inevitably wore out with use. That and an occasional tweak on
the azimuth were pretty much the only maintenance they needed.

11. In ITU-R Rec. 601, black level and peak white are represented by:

A. 0 and 235
B. 16 and 235
C. 0 and 255
D. 16 and 255

B. 16 and 235.

12. You need to reduce the depth of field. What kind of filter do you
select?

A. Ultra-violet
B. Polarizing
C. Bandpass
D. Neutral density

D. Neutral density.

13. You are a clueless arty fart and have been given the job of
designing something that looks like the Alexandra Palace tower for an
episode of Dr Who. You stick objects on the tower that look like:

A. A fan from a jet engine
B. An old central heating radiator
C. A string of onions
D. A bedstead

C. A string of onions.

14. What is 377 ohms?

A. An nominally 300-ohm STC 4038 microphone at 800 Hz
B. The driving point of a half-wave folded dipole
C. The characteristic impedance of free space
D. A 330-ohm and 47-ohm resistor in parallel

C. The characteristic impedance of free space.

If an electromagnetic field has an electric field strength of E
volts/metre, and a magnetic field strength of H amps/metre, then the two
are related by E = 120.pi.H. The characteristic impedance is the ratio
of E/H, i.e. 120.pi = 366.99112.

A half-wave folded-dipole will have an impedance of about 300 ohms or a
bit less, depending on the fatness of the elements etc.

Only one person fell for D: those two resistors would have to be in
series to produce the desired value.

15. The big white thing at the top of the Crystal Palace TV tower is:

A. A big candle
B. A hollow cylinder
C. Now unused, following the end of 405-line transmissions, but still
there because it's too difficult to remove
D. Known by the riggers who maintain the tower as "Baird's Revenge"

B. A hollow cylinder.

16. Which tune by Eric Coates is also known as the Rediffusion March?

A. By The Sleepy Lagoon
B. Music Everywhere
C. Man From The Sea
D. Calling All Workers

B. Music Everywhere


17. The director says "Kill the redhead!". Does he mean:

A. Murder a ginger-haired production assistant
B. Switch off a light
C. Murder Brian Redhead, if he's still alive
D. Switch off that clapperboard thingy with timecode on red LEDs

B. Switch off a light.

18. Which is the odd one out?

A. 23.976
B. 27.125
C. 29.97
D. 59.94

B. 27.125 is the only number that is not an NTSC drop-frame related
field/frame rate.

19. You make a stereo, 16-bit, 48kHz linear PCM recording that lasts
exactly an hour, a minute and a second. How big is the file, to the
nearest Megabyte?

A. 701 MB
B. 702 MB
C. 703 MB
D. 704 MB

C. 703 MB

2 x 16 x (1/8) x 48000 x (3600 + 60 + 1) = 702,912,000 bytes

20. In which of these old films does a military leader attempt to hijack
the country's broadcasting networks as part of a coup d'état?

A. Dr Strangelove
B. Seven Days in May
C. On the Beach
D. The Manchurian Candidate

B. Seven Days in May.

In this film General Mattoon Scott, played by Burt Lancaster, sets up a
clandestine microwave communications node called ECOMCON which can
intercept the microwave distribution chains used by the TV networks,
enabling him to hijack them and broadcast to the nation from his bunker
at Mount Thunder.

In Dr Strangelove, General Jack D. Ripper orders his assistant, Captain
Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) to confiscate all the privately owned
radio *receivers* at Burpelson Air Force Base to prevent servicemen from
discovering that a war with the Russians has *not* broken out.

I hope neither the festivities nor this quiz contaminated your precious
bodily fluids.

Congratulations to Paul Martin who scored 19 out of 20. Brian D is
runner-up with 17.


--
Richard Lamont http://www.lamont.me.uk/
<richard@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
OpenPGP Key ID: 0x5096714C
Fingerprint: F838 740C 76B4 6EC6 9ECC 1C4D A4DE 3322 5096 714C
.

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