[Elecraft] Fastest: Paddle or Bug (OT)

Tue Feb 18 18:23:02 2003

I've got several sliderules, including an 8" diameter circular: the height 
of approximate precision.

best wishes,

dave belsley, w1euy

--On Tuesday, February 18, 2003 12:25 PM -0700 "Bragg, Donald J" 
<[email protected]> wrote:

>
> 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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----------------------------------
David A. Belsley
Professor of Economics