[time-nuts] [OT] degausing

[Magnus Danielson]

Craig S McCartney wrote:
> A bit off topic, but likely interesting to time-nuts:
> 
> In the early days of HDTV (late 80s - early 90s) we were at a European
> trade show and had to borrow, at the last minute, a large (~40")
> CRT-based HD monitor from a Dutch company that was also exhibiting
> there.  We liked it so much that we purchased it for use at other trade
> shows.  The very next show was in Sydney, Australia.  The monitor would
> not converge and had funny rainbow patterns no matter how many times we
> degaussed it.  Thinking it had been damaged in its half-way around the
> world shipment we called in the local representatives of the Dutch
> manufacturer and they were as stumped as we were.  Finally, after they
> talked to engineers at the factory, the explanation was: "Of course,
> that is a Northern Hemisphere monitor; the earth's magnetic field is
> much different in the Southern Hemisphere. It can't work there.".  After
> the show we shipped it back to our headquarters in California and, sure
> enough, the picture was perfect.
> 
> So, we had a HDTV monitor that doubled as a earth hemisphere detector,
> using magnetic flux differential.  Needless to say, we only used it in
> northern hemisphere shows after that.

Did you ever tried to run it upside down?

Cheers,
Magnus