Oh yeah, it's tough when you're trying to support a customer and they talk about a "modem", "hub", "switch", "booster", "extender", etc. The only safe assumption is that there's a box with blinky lights.
I did more or less get over "satellite". When it's a dish shaped antenna or reflector, I can understand where the confusion comes from and ignore it. I'm still confused when it's a panel antenna and they say "satellite", but I can roll with it because I know what object they're referring to and therefore communication was achieved. Lately, I hate when outside plant guys call a splitter a "planar". In some contexts, I'd certainly call it a PLC or "planar lightwave circuit", but usually I call it a splitter like a normal person because the goal of speaking is to communicate, and normal people know what a splitter is. Even worse is that there are people who mispronounce it. It's plain-er like a geometric plane, but there are people who say plan-arr. Plan-arr is not a damn word. I dealt with an ISP where the entire engineering department was pronouncing it wrong, and I was struggling to hold my tongue. I think this bugs me so much because I feel like saying "planar" is an intentional obfuscation--lots of listeners won't know what they mean and the speaker likes it that way—and then they hit me with the double-tap of being pretentious and dumb simultaneously. ________________________________ From: AF <[email protected]> on behalf of Ken Hohhof <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, June 5, 2026 11:55 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]> Subject: [AFMUG] would therapy help? Is there some kind of psychiatric therapy, maybe hypnosis, that would cure me of getting annoyed every time someone calls an antenna a “satellite”? It’s almost the norm now, so you’d think I’d just get used to it, but if anything it bugs me more as time goes on. Maybe if I’d made the switch to fiber I wouldn’t have to worry about antennas and what they’re called. Probably there are annoyances in the fiber world as well. Like the people who think “fiber optic” is better than “fiber”? Or why is nothing a wire or cable anymore, it’s a “cord”? But not having to hear about “satellites” and “modems” and “boosters” and “bouncing the signal” would be nice.
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