Hi

Might as well keep on plodding under the same message as everyone else.  Just in case you missed my profile, the name's Jonathan, same as my D-Light profile.  Like a lot of other folks I started out with a Mr. Christmas unit (2007).   I was so disappointed with it that after one song I turned the sound off, selected 'lights always on', and after the season was over I packed it up and put it outside with a sign that said "$20 for a Mr. Christmas thingy".  Much to my horror I came back the next day and there sat $20 and TWO Mr. Christmas units with a note that read, "Thanks!  I was looking for anyone that was willing to take that stupid thing away, and $20 was the lowest I saw anyone offer.  I'm off to buy a real system from D-Light!"  Seriously, I have always enjoyed cool holiday displays, and believe me I saw some amazing Christmas stuff during my days working at Disneyland.  (Ah, the college years.)  So one day I decided to do some research on the net (I think it may have been after I saw that HGTV special) and here we are today.  I was fortunate enough to be a beta tester for the wiLink system, and the end result was my July 4th show (which is also where I learned all about Spectrum).  But Spectrum is no longer with us, so I am here. 

Hello to all the familar faces as well as to the new ones I've never met.

Steve Jones - this will be my 3rd year.  Saw Carson's display in Dec 2005, knew it was too late to do anything on my own, but vowed to make it happen in 2006 as my next nerdly endeavor.  Ordered 64 channels worth of ACx8 silvers, honed the soldering skills and got it all put together.  Ordered Spectrum as soon as it came out.  I was able to get my songs sequenced, but was frustrated with the scheduler.  I believe that M-Class had mentioned on PlanetChristmas that he had written his own scheduler - I was immediately intrigued and PM'd him about it.  He shared the app and it was a life saver!  I was even lucky enough to get to submit some code changes that optimized the sequences by removing redundant commands (a certain part of me hopes that some of that is still in Aurora...  ).

I kind of hung it up after Christmas, but in the fall of 2007 I sent Michael an email out of the blue, just asking him what's up, if he's seen the latest version of Spectrum...low and behold, he had been busy.  So I jumped in as a beta tester.  I added 16 channels and a few more songs - all in Aurora.  Even then, it was pretty stable, and I purchased it as soon as it was available.

I've been pretty quiet for the past 6 months (busy with s/w development consulting), but it's getting to be that time that I need to MAKE time.  Hopefully I'll get my neighbors more involved (I synchronized 3 houses the first year, 4 last year, prolly somewhere between 6 and 8 this year ).

Hoping to do some neat stuff this year, but still have a lot of decisions up in the air. 

Well I'll jump into. I'm here in Rocklin, California, a native English guy called Pete, who moved over to the US about 3 years ago with my Family.

May as well follow the crowd here and say Hi as well. I'm Bruce Keen and last year was the start of syncronized lighting for me. We live near Easton, PA and far as I know there's not anyone else nearby (say 25 mile radius) doing anything like this sort of stuff.

how's it going I am Lee Slinkard, known around my parts as just Slink (old military name, wonder where they got it from?)

Guess I'll jump in and say Hi!