Costella and the DP rain sensors

[Bill Miller]

I'd say knowledgable enough with authorative posts and links, enough to keep you running all over the place. 300 feet from the lawn sensors hmm, that close to Gary's desk? Test 1-2-3, Test 1-2-3, hello TEST

Is BS helping you with these say nothing responses or are you just as good as he is in making them?

Bill Miller

[Brendan Slattery]

I'd say knowledgable enough with authorative posts and links, enough to keep you running all over the place. 300 feet from the lawn sensors hmm, that close to Gary's desk? Test 1-2-3, Test 1-2-3, hello TEST

Is BS helping you with these say nothing responses or are you just as good as he is in making them?

Bill Miller

Don't drag me into this you condescending twerp.

[Jack White]

Here's a standard sensor. It doubles as an ice sensor as well.

Mr. White....

as a veteran of many large and small irrigation installs, the things you've pointed out, re: the sprinklers, just aren't that uncommon.

not trying to be a "provocateur", just passing it on.

hang in there, keep lookin'.

Hi, Tom...thanks. In your opinion, were SIX rain sensors needed to

determine whether it rains in a TWO BLOCK AREA?

I wish you would examine the sprinklers in the plaza...nearly all were

for shrubs...none for the big grass infield, and many were broken, though

the rain sensors looked much newer than the sprinkler heads. And the

sprinkler heads were all the small pop-up residential type, not the type

typically seen in parks. Attached...another of the many sensors.

Jack

It is not a Toro Sensor, but some other brand. Here is a photo.

I will look up the brand.

Jacvk

[Bill Miller]

Don't drag me into this you condescending twerp.

Sorry, BS, but both of you have become known for the same style of posting, just on opposite ends of the scale ... just go back and read the threads.

Bill Miller

[David G. Healy]

Don't drag me into this you condescending twerp.

Sorry, BS, but both of you have become known for the same style of posting, just on opposite ends of the scale ... just go back and read the threads.

Bill Miller

Oh-my! Now, back to that 300', maybe there's a in-line repeater amp right beside the 6th Floor Museum 365/24/7 camera - get that data back to irrigation headquarters - come to think of it, why rain sensors at ALL, the 6th floor camera rotates through the entire Plaza doesn't it? You can see when its rains, right?

[Jack White]

dgh: oh-my gosh, the lone Nutter's found a physicist foolish enough to challenge Dr. John Costella, I missed that, who is it and is his/her specialty optics? You clowns might get a book deal after all...

David, you have to be the biggest troller of forums I have ever witnessed. I have yet to see you actually explain why one position is preferred over the other. The best I have seen you do is place a link in your reponse which doesn't tell anyone if you even have an understanding as to what you are saying or why you are saying it. Instead of citing facts, you attempt to promote a position by way of propaganda in their place. Your "physicist" is the same guy who at first supported Jack by saying that Moorman was standing in the street when she took her number five Polaroid. The physicist not only failed to see Moorman's camera looking over the top of the cycles windshields, but he didn't even attempt to find out how tall one opf those sysles stood from the ground to the top of its shield. (So much more thoroghness!) So just being a physicist doesn't mean a hell of a lot when you make such errors. One person in this thread has said that he has experience with such irrigation systems and while not having been in Texas, he has seen such techniques as those used in Dealey Plaza used in another state. Costella didn't even offer to tell the reader whether or not he bothered to find out if these irrigation methods were used in other parts of the country that by the way would be unrelated to Dealey Plaza or JFK's assassination. But as long as he has a 'Baghdad Bob' like yourself who is willing to say one thing even if the record says something else, then that must be all that counts to a troller.

Bill Miller

xxxxx? LMAO... come on you silly guy, the following has been on the internet for a few years, surely you read the contributors rebuttal to the Gang's nonesense didn't you? If not (it appears that way) you really should educate yourself, become a functioning xxxxx at least... maybe 'Barb the JUNK' would care to comment what with you being you uninformed???

<quote on>

Appendix: Strange experiences en route to Duluth (15 pages)

In this Appendix I provide what I hope to be an entertaining account for my experiences when visiting Dealey Plaza and in travelling to Duluth, Minnesota, for the Zapruder Film Symposium in May 2003. Included are a variety of eyebrow-raising experiences, individually humorous and curious, but collectively providing food for thought for anyone who has not lived the experience of being a known (feared?) JFK researcher first-hand. To fully appreciate this Appendix, one must read it in the context of the rest of the book, in particular David Lifton’s chapter about the shady characters and dealings that are rife in assassination research, and Jim Fetzer’s overviews of the curious “conversions” of Gary Mack and Josiah Thompson. Included amongst the experiences are: “rain sensors” that are hidden in such a way that they cannot collect rain, and separated by only fifteen yards (so that they can detect if it’s raining on one side of Main Street but not the other)—but whose symmetrical layout makes much more sense for audio surveillance purposes; “tourists” who acted remarkably like government agents; an “adjustable lamp pole”, propped up by about an inch on all sides by small washers, whose angle could be adjusted at will, overnight, simply by lifting the pole and moving a few of the washers, that could be used to discredit research investigating angles of objects (as mine has); another “tourist” following us to Minnesota and around the airport; my luggage having been gone through during a seven-hour wait at Minneapolis–St. Paul airport, with the “coincidental” results being the destruction of my electric shaver, holes being “clawed” in my shirts, and the memory card of a digital camera being destroyed, all being discovered on the morning I was to make my presentation; and the American-accented substitute teacher taking my place in Melbourne who had apparently lived in Australia for seventeen years, but couldn’t understand Australian accents, didn’t know who the Prime Minister of Australia was, and spent the entire four hours he remained in the job (before claiming he had found full-time work elsewhere) searching through the drawers of my desk in my classroom. Of course, none of these amusing events prove anything at all about the Zapruder film. Some intuitively-challenged researchers have offered the deadpan response, “Oh, that’s an interesting set of coincidences,” to which one feels like Holmes dealing with Watson on one of his particularly dull days. I leave this Appendix to the individual reader to form their own opinions; and all but those with an obvious agenda to pursue tend to arrive, not remarkably, at roughly the same conclusions. Read it yourself, and tell me what you think. Really! As it has no bearing on the authenticity of the Zapruder film, I really don’t mind where it takes you. (Consider it my contribution to the entertainment value of the book!)

The Gang’s response:

Given the importance of the rest of the book, it is remarkable that The Gang has yet another “specialist” whose only contribution is to argue about observations that have no bearing at all on the thesis of the book, namely, that the Zapruder film is a hoax. Barb Junkkarinen (known generally as “Junk”—I now know why) provides us a short section of scientific indignation and studious research on a burning issue in JFK assassination research: Wireless RainSensors.

Junk mounts her soapbox by complaining that someone with a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, an Honours degree in Engineering, an Honours degree in Science, and a teaching diploma should always investigate—scientifically, and until they drop of exhaustion—any object of scientific or engineering interest that is put before them. I guess she thinks that scientists and engineers are like Pavlov’s dogs: show us something technical, and we start salivating.

Junk’s good mate, Stu Wexler, has the same belief. He spent months of my time in 2001, trying to draw me in on research designed to debunk Ken Rahn’s absurd neutron activation analysis (NAA) claims. I spent some time on the issue, but told Stu very quickly that Rahn’s statistical arguments were hilarious. If Ken Rahn were counting sheep, he’d conclude that half of them were actually dogs, because he had a sheepdog rounding them up in one paddock. Mathematically speaking, that’s how ridiculous his claims were.

Unfortunately, Stewart Galanor, who also earns his keep these days teaching high school mathematics, did get sucked into this furphy. Galanor’s a good man, and it saddened me to learn that his talents had been absorbed by this sort of rubbish.

Anyway, I digress. Back to Wexler’s mate, Junk. She apparently believes that I should spend all of my energies investigating and researching these RainSensors. She is indignant that I “determined, to my satisfaction” what was going on in Dealey Plaza, too rapidly for her comprehension. She insists that it is a field of research that warrants a major investment of time and energy:

Did Costella do any research into the irrigation system installed in Dealey Plaza? He mentions none in his chapter, and failed to respond when I asked him this very question on alt.assassination.jfk.

Junk is being very cute here. A serious back-down, no less! What actually happened is that I broke with my own rule (see the introduction to my chapter) of not posting to the public newsgroups, and responded to a comment about The Great Zapruder Film Hoax on alt.assassination.jfk. What Junk fails to tell you is that this newsgroup is “moderated”, which means that it is censored by the man who “owns” it, John McAdams. There is more than enough on the Internet to tell you about McAdams and his modus operandi, if you are interested in the slimier side of assassination research.

My first posting to McAdamsLand on this topic appeared within a normal time frame, and Junk responded. After that, my postings seemed to disappear into a black hole—only to reappear many days later, attached to Junk threads, with second-hand responses from other members of The Gang.

I remembered why I stopped posting to McAdamsLand in the first place, and returned to that policy. Obviously Junk posted a challenge in some of her namesake, that I did not answer.

But let us put that missed opportunity to one side. Junk proceeds to tell us what she has learned from her Google search researches.

The devices have a range of 300 feet to the receiver, which must be housed indoors. Hang on a minute! Is Junk trying to attack me, or agree with me? Where are these “indoor” receivers in Dealey Plaza? In the former Texas School Book Despository? If the actual irrigation is to occur in the grassy area between Elm and Main, and Main and Commerce, how could a receiver indoors be of any help at all? And if the range is 300 feet, why was there a need for two of them within 50 feet of each other?

Junk then asks whether I tested the devices for audio transmission on an RF link. Yes, Barb, I pulled an all-band RF receiver out of my backside and tested the devices. Of course, if Junk were the electronics engineer she scolds me for being, she’d know that there’s no way of testing if an RF transmission is “actually audio”. If she has no understanding at all of digital devices and digital transmission, why is she bothering to write this section at all? Did she owe Tink a favour? Maybe she should have an Internet Phone conversation with him, and have someone pick up the other extension and listen to what it sounds like. “No, no audio conversation at all,” they would report. “All I heard was a noise that sounded like a fax machine or a modem.” DUH!

But let’s imagine that I really did want to spend all of my time in Dallas ignoring the reason I was there, and instead playing with RainSensors. Junk suggests that anyone with such an interest (which isn’t me, but let’s pretend it is) would “rent, borrow, beg or steal” the equipment necessary to analyse the devices. Well, let’s just walk through the logic of that one, Barb, real slowly for you. There are two logical possibilities. If the device is a rain sensor, it will still be one when I get back with all that gear. If it’s a listening device, then … someone’s listening, right? Oh YEAH! I can hear the penny dropping in Junk’s head from here.

And that’s it. All the Junk she could think of.

<quote off>

would you care for the link?

Dr. Costella wrote:

"another “tourist” following us to Minnesota and around the airport; my luggage having been gone through during a seven-hour wait at Minneapolis–St. Paul airport, with the “coincidental” results being the destruction of my electric shaver, holes being “clawed” in my shirts, and the memory card of a digital camera being destroyed, all being discovered on the morning I was to make my presentation;"

I can attest to the accuracy of the above. John and I sat together

on the flight from DFW to Minneapolis. As we talked, he scribbled

a note and showed me. It said "the guy in the seat in front of us

is listening to every word we say". Sure enough, the man in a

dark blue suit seemed to be listening to us. At the airport, we sat

down at a McDonald's concourse table...and the man in the suit

sat down at the next table. We went to the opposite end of the

terminal to make sure we sat together on the transfer flight to

Duluth". The man did likewise. Sure enough, he was also on the

Duluth flight. The next morning, John told me about his luggage

being gone thru, his shaver damaged, and his camera tampered

with. It was very curious.

Jack

[Bill Miller]

The next morning, John told me about his luggage

being gone thru, his shaver damaged, and his camera tampered

with. It was very curious.

Jack

Yes ... and all since 9/11 ... imagine that!

[Bill Miller]

It is not a Toro Sensor, but some other brand. Here is a photo.

I will look up the brand.

Jacvk

Go here ......... http://www.rainsensor.com/

Bill Miller

[David G. Healy]

It is not a Toro Sensor, but some other brand. Here is a photo.

I will look up the brand.

Jacvk

Go here ......... http://www.rainsensor.com/

Bill Miller

That company's web site administrator must be wondering why the hell they're getting so many hits all of a sudden...if they only knew...

Or maybe they do...cue Twilight Zone music...

yep, gott'a be 5 or 6 hits - watch for a crashing server.