[sdiy] of diodes and datasheets

[Mountain Man]

Hi folks,   I'm looking to rectify a signal that has very short +/- 12V
pulses.  I thought I'd use a 1N4448, but wasn't sure about whether I'd
need to reduce the voltage (I want to keep the positive pulses as near
12V as possible).  Looking at the datasheet (from phillips.com), it says
continuous reverse voltage: max 75V and repetive peak reverse voltage:
max 75V.  Great!  No problem!  Then I look a little further, and there's
a table labeled "electrical characteristics"  In that table, it seems to
indicate a max voltage of 1.0V at 10mA.  Can someone explain this to
me?  Can I use this diode for my purpose or not??

Thanks,
Elby

BTW, I put together my first "home brew" circuit tonight - an opamp used
as a comparator, followed by another one to integrate.  I'm getting out
lovely pulses at zero-crossings from different kinds of input signals
:)   This stuff is starting to make some sense, particularly with all
the help I've been getting :)