[Elecraft] Fastest: Paddle or Bug (OT)

Tue Feb 18 14:29:01 2003

There's a very interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal about a
new interest in old technology - the slide rule.  Who else out there still
have at least one slide rule they can get their hands on (and use it)?

Don W0DJB
-----Original Message-----
From: Ron D'Eau Claire [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 12:06 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [Elecraft] Fastest: Paddle or Bug (OT)

Mike, KK6F wrote: 
As an aside, in the late 1970s the US ballistic missile submarine
squadron to which I was attached started a program for their radiomen to
improve Morse skills.  Few of the radiomen on my submarine could do much
more than recognize Morse characters sent very slowly.  I believe the
thought process behind this skill improvement program was that, were
nuclear missiles ever launched, most of the normal fancy computerized
communications systems would become unavailable shortly thereafter.
-------------------------------------------------------
I had the pleasure of sailing as a civilian contractor aboard the Naval
hospital ship USNS Mercy a couple of times to check out the radio gear,
calibrate the radio direction finder, etc. One day I was working on the
navigating bridge when I noticed that the captain had a couple of his
officers out on the bridge wings taking "noon sightings" with sextants!
Here I was standing with him on a bridge with radars and GPS displays
that gave our location so precisely we could almost dock the ship blind
and the officers were out "shooting the sun" with 150 year-old
technology that required a lot of skill to determine their location with
any accuracy at all. 

When I asked the captain about it, he smiled and said, "The day we
really need all of this high-tech satellite stuff is the day it won't be
working. My officers are learning to do their job when that happens!"

Ron AC7AC
K2 # 1289

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