[ARC5] [armyradios] BC-221 Testing Results

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

On 24 Nov 2012 at 10:48, Jay Coward wrote:

> Another
>  surprise to me was the TS-1 oscillator used with the AN/ARR-1 Homing
>  adapter. This is a cavity tuned unit set to 245 MHz. It was off by 30
>  Hz as measured with an Agilent spectrum analyzer. Jay 

But, but, but...... those old timers were stupid compared with we 
smarty-pants engineers with our powerful 'pooters today! How could they 
possibly have done that?!?!? Slide-rules? What are those? Gee...your 
Agilent measuring equipment MUST be off, or not recently calibrated, or you 
read it wrong, or didn't have your glasses on, or your glasses prescription is 
out of date, or you're too damned old, or.....

Crap! What a bunch of arrogant idiots!

A "technician" friend of mine at a midwestern university bought an R-389 
from me some time back.

His shop assistant was a young woman who was working towards a degree 
in mechanical engineering.

When my friend unpacked the R-389, she sniffed and turned up her nose. It 
was too big, had too many of those ancient vacuum tubes in it, too heavy, 
and drew too much power, and was simply "not with it"....until he plugged it 
in, turned it on, and activated the motor-driven permeability tuning.

Then her eyes bugged out, and her mouth dropped open, and she spent the 
rest of the day operating the motor drive and watching the slug-racks go up 
and down at different rates, and different directions, and different distances, 
and she didn't say another word.

Too bad all of these modern engineers can't be taught a little humility...

Ken W7EKB