wiggley Amps

[spec]

Does anyone know what wiggley Amps are? I never did find out.

It was a term used by my one-time boss, an ex-Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm Air Traffic Controller and assesor.

He knew little about electronics but he did know how to treat people and bring a project in on time. He was also one of the funniest people I ever knew.

This thread is an invitation to discuss the sort of wide-ranging subjects that we started discussing on Mosaic's, 'super precision Voltage ref' topic around 08 November 2015. That is your experiences, anecdotes, advice, etc. To quote Tony Stewart, 'Got a million more stories like that'

 

[BobW]

Alternating current?
Direct current would be the non-wiggly kind.

 

[JoeJester]

Air Traffic Controller

I think that is the key to what a "wiggly" amplifier might be.

I would further guess the "wiggly" amplifier is in the receiver or possibly the display as the controllers had the display to observe.

 

[BobW]

I didn't interpret 'amp' necessarily to be amplifier. It could be 'ampere'. Hence, my suggestion that wiggly amps are AC (think sinewave).

 

[spec]

Alternating current?
Direct current would be the non-wiggly kind.

Hi Bob,

Yes, that's what I thought when I first heard the term for the same reason as you: the wiggly symbol on schematics to show AC. I'm pretty sure that's how it originated, most probably by techi types in the Royal Navy, but it's become more ubiquitous and taken on a subtler meaning over the years, although like I said in the opening post I never did find a definitive answer to its meaning.

I see you are from Canada so perhaps you haven't come across the term before. It seems to have become a catch-all for every signal: DC, radio frequency, twisted pair data links, light ... It means I need to talk about this but I don't know anything about electronics and I really don't want to know. It's jocular and in good spirit though.

There's another term which is slightly related, that used to raise the engineers blood pressure at the company where I worked: 'It's only engineering'. This was the catch phrase of one of the project managers, I'll call him Sidney, who's basically thought that engineers where low level and rather like tools- you just use them as necessary and then hang them back in the rack when not required.

So, for example, you may be at a meeting with the customer, normally the military in our case. The customer may say: "Using the 12V power in a standard truck could you provide a portable system that would track an aircraft at a hundred miles and produce a digital readout of its size?" The engineer might ask, "Would that be with the truck engine running?" And Sidney would come out with, "We won't worry about that- IT'S ONLY ENGINEERING".

 

[spec]

I think that is the key to what a "wiggly" amplifier might be.

I would further guess the "wiggly" amplifier is in the receiver or possibly the display as the controllers had the display to observe.

Hi Joe,

Yes, that's a possibility. The Navy seem to have names for everything. The Navy is the Andrew and I was a crab, being ex Royal Air Force. It's derived from the colour of the uniform, crab-fat grey!

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

The Internet is full of useful info. Searching is much harder.

from http://ccgi.piers.plus.com/ball/definitions.htm

Wiggly amps: (pl. n.)Term used by the uneducated to describe the action of electromagnetic waves. cf. Bernouillis, Lift fairies, skyhooks, Ones and noughts/zeros, Science occurs

 

[spec]

The Internet is full of useful info. Searching is much harder.

from http://ccgi.piers.plus.com/ball/definitions.htm

Wiggly amps: (pl. n.)Term used by the uneducated to describe the action of electromagnetic waves. cf. Bernouillis, Lift fairies, skyhooks, Ones and noughts/zeros, Science occurs

Well, well, I didn't realise that it was such a well known term- you learn something new everyday- great dictionary!

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

BTW. What's a "Noth" Somerset UK. in your Location? "North", maybe?

 

[spec]

I'm lexyxdixic