How I Handle Unsolicited Telephone Calls
Kirt's Cogitations™ #265

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A short while back I came up with what has turned out to be a pretty effective way to handle those pain-in-the-donkey unsolicited telephone calls. We don't have caller ID on our home phone (the phone company wants about $30/month for it) so we have to answer every time it rings or risk missing a wanted call. It is well known that once you pick up, the call centers then know yours is a good number to call so it gets passed on to even more call spammers. Being listed on the federal "Do Not Call" list is only one line of defense, and does almost no good for out-of-country sources.

Most of the callers will keep talking over you until you hang up, even after expressing no desire to deal with them. So, what I do now as soon as I determine it is a spam call is start speaking a list of keywords for which the FBI, DHS, and other law enforcement agencies notoriously monitor. I'll calmly say something along the lines of, "I hope the FBI and Department of Homeland Security is listening to this conversation because to me you are like an ISIS terrorist organization attacking my homeland in the United States by throwing bombs on the telephone and mass shooting large numbers of infidels with your hateful rhetoric." I have not yet had a single person stay on the line long enough for me to even finish." They don't even argue.

Posted December 11, 2015

Maury Microwave / Holzworth HSY RF Synthesizers - RF Cafe Website

RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling 2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps while tying up your telephone line, and a lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail" when a new message arrived...