h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A trick I was taught for tuning my fiddle was to call TIM which, if memory serves correctly, would give a concert pitch but I cannot remember which note.

This changed to dialling your own number which gave you a Concert Pitch of G.

Don't know how that helps, but might enable the piano to be tuned properly.

MMF

//A trick I was taught for tuning my fiddle was to call TIM which, if memory serves correctly, would give a concert pitch but I cannot remember which note.//

That's kind of the right answer but not quite applicable to this question becuase he's not tuning a fiddle and no-one has yet said to what end this has been all for. So take a DGI +1

He's in traffic enforcement - is this something to do with a breathalyser (using batteries), or parking meter (time critical)?

So does the phone call somehow help get the Steinway Grand Piano on the right note?

Does our rookie traffic cop have a speed gun? Could that be what the batteries were for?


Geggs

Is it something to do with presidential elections - clearing a route?

He's in traffic enforcement (YUP ) - is this something to do with a breathalyser (using batteries), or parking meter (time critical)? (NOPE x 2 )

//So does the phone call somehow help get the Steinway Grand Piano on the right note? //

Nope.

//Does our rookie traffic cop have a speed gun? Could that be what the batteries were for?//

Correct! +3

//Is it something to do with presidential elections - clearing a route?//

A bold suggestion - but alas nothing like that.

So could the speed gun be used to measure the vibration of the piano string, and if you knew what speed the string should vibrate at, then you could tune it properly?


Geggs

Speed guns are used to measure the speeds of cars, silly!

But you're getting warmer....

Using Doppler effect?

Yup.



I suggest someone go back and review all the DGI +1's , +3s and see if they can put it all together.....

This sounds like some sort of do-it-yourself attempt to calibrate a speed gun. Not sure why he'd want to do that - has he just pulled someone over who has questioned whether the speed gun is operating correctly?

Rookie has a speed gun, which has a duff battery.

He replaces it, but it needs recalibrating. To do that he needs to set the frequency, but due to it being set at such a high pitch, he needs somewhere that might have that.
Knowing his opera, he knows Mozart is being rehearsed, legs it to the Opera House, and recalibrates.
But...
Any information he acquires is no good unless the time is accurate, hence TIM.

Now the gun is good to go.

Except the piano is out of tune, the speed gun will not work properly, so all his efforts were a waste of time.

Should have gone to FBI Spec-Savers, where he could have downloaded the correct information.

Not expecting any coconuts.


MMF

//This sounds like some sort of do-it-yourself attempt to calibrate a speed gun.//

Correct +3

I will write up this QI tomorrow and score all the points with an explanation.

Bligey. I've cracked one!!!

Well. No. That's not true. Everyone else cracked it. I just sorted the threads first.

Clive.

MMF

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You seem to have forgotten it is 1977 people downloaded very little in 1977.

I think Mmf and Icy each deserve +3 as they seem to have alighted on the final correct answer simultaneously.