> Perhaps this 100% immersion business has you baffled?

You very obviously don't know me at all :-)
My wife would set you right on this score (as would various friends (while
shaking their heads)).

> Some of us, believe it or not, have a serious, devoted
> interest in how things work (call it 'a taste for the
> truth' in life),

Amen brother !
Seriously though, is there any other way to live ?

> and for me this comes into play  when
> endeavouring specifically in the field of RF engineering
> and more generally in that applied field of physics called
> 'electronics'.

I am, as I occasionally remark,

    "Jack of all trades, Master of Electrical Engineering"

(which is far closer to Franklin's / Poor Richards original quote than the
modern aberration thereof).

BUT - if it moves, breathes, ticks, flaps, sublimates, flows, grows,
conducts, phase changes, rotates, extrudes, nutates, gyrates, vibrates,
reverberates, effervesces, coalesces, compresses, scintillates, fluoresces,
migrates, expands, compands, polymerises, synthesises, rolls, slides, ties,
chips, abrades, fractures, glissades, slides, hops, skips, plucks, twangs,
sinks (or floats), coats, embalms, extends, embeds, encroaches, broaches,
spreads (or thixatropes), shrinks, winks, blows, chills (or heats),
convects/conducts/ or radiates, climbs, falls, refrigerates, eviscerates,
emaciates (though bios a weak suite), bends, hinges, folds, unpacks,
unwraps, warps, twists, attracts, compacts, reacts, flies, hovers, glides,
inters, spalls, fractures, splits, conjoins, catalyses, metamorphs, rings,
damps, clamps, amplifies, resists, or ......  . Or doesn't, I'm fascinated.

(Sorry if there's any duplications there. Please add to the list, I'll
join!)

> I'm sorry if this sort thing of doesn't
> translate well to someone who has never seen a fluorescent
> lamp light-up (without attachment to the usual circuitry at
> it's terminal) under the influence of a high-strength RF field
> many feet from the RF 'excited' tower,

... my best toy in that area was a 3 kW surplus 27 MHz plastic welder. Small
no doubt by real men's RF standards but a great toy.

> but to me it is truly
> awe-inspiring and once again indicative how of dynamic, vast
> and *real* invisible forces of nature that are at work in
> this world God created ...

I can't argue with that. But I find the Caterpillar-Butterfly transition
even more so. Each to their own favourite demonstrations ! :-)

> ... to see these laws of nature as evidenced ....
> ...... continually!) by an all-knowing creator work every time ...

No arguments there. Well, almost none :-). We still have to work out what
all His laws really are :-)

> ... and to succeed in such an endeavour after days or weeks of
> work results in something akin to giving birth (I would suppose)

Only a second approximation I suspect - but the closest we mere males may
get to true creativity.

> Nor will *most* people (become totally immersed problem solving/a
> specific task at hand). This is part of human nature that continually
> exhibits itself, yet, few seem to recognize it ...

OK. But if so this would very probably eliminate a significant number of
people on this list who are not women (which is pertinent to the original
point).

> Addendum.
>
> I think I've said this before, Russell, that I really don't
> appreciate each and every bit of one of my posts being pulled apart
> and cross-analyzed when it is in the *totallity* of that post
> that my point is made.
>
> This is akin to pulling out only portions of a speech made by a
> public figure disliked by the press who then that make that their
> 'highlight' of the top-of-the-hour-news for the next five or six
> hours.
>
> Thank you for your honoring this request in the future, Russell.


I've agreed more or less albeit light heartedly with most of what you were
saying. I have to make slightly more serious comment on the last request.
You may notice (and may not) that I don't make too much comment lately on
your comments. In this particular case you expressely invited comment -
perhaps mainly from one list member but in open forum. In the past where I
have picked out specific parts of a post to comment on you have complained.
In this case I commented in totality pargraph by paragraph to avoid such
complaint. But got a complaint about comment anyway. I think I did comment
on the totality of your post - that was the honest aim but the result may
have fallen short of the intention. It's easy with written messages like
this to get a fairly disjointed result. Would be better if I could buy you a
Coke (the black wet sort) and we could talk verbally but that's (of course)
not the nature of the medium we deal through here. I don't think we can
really achieve much more than butting heads but sometimes it may be useful
to try.

Regardless of our obvious differences of perspective and our obvious
commonalities - good luck with your joyous RFing - I appreciate it and
understand it as well as a non true-initiate may. (Having held a full
amateur licence for two+ decades (3+?) and still remembering tuning 807
finals for max RF out by peaking the blue glow on the tube envelopes where
the holes in the anodes allowed electrons to impact the glass (very slighly
off resonant dip on a Pi coupler interestingly) I have some glimmer of what
its about. (I wonder how many XRays accompanied that blue glow :-) ?). I get
about as much joy from seeing a well constructed water rocket hanging as a
small dot high above and then backsliding perfecly without a judder, but
such mysteries are (also) not easily conveyed to the uninitiated. The
remembered song of a bucking sliding (underpowered) Jawa (not the Star Wars
(tm) ones) on an off camber downhill gravel corner is almost as evocative,
though now part of dimming memory. And no engineering involved until
afterwards. Now there's a thought - I've noticed that not many women ride
motorcycles. I wonder .... ? :-)


        Russell McMahon


PS
Warning: Not all or any of the above may make sense depending on your state
of mind when you read it and/or mine when I wrote it. Bed time (2:45am).

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