[Elecraft] Fw: Visual CW

Sun Feb 23 17:08:01 2003

I agree that I can't imagine the Navy eliminating CW or at least visual signal
(Aldis lamp) morse!  Do they really trust not being detected doing a satellite
"burst" upload?  Seems like that would still break radio silence?  Even though it
is slow, it is hard to 'read the lamp' over the horizon.
73,
Sandy W5TVW
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2003 10:54 AM
Subject: [Elecraft] Fw: Visual CW

| I've been retired for 10 years from Grumman Aircraft where I worked for
| nearly 30 years in flight test instrumentation, mostly on the E-2C
| Hawkeye, an early warning radar plane carrying a 1 megawatt radar...I was
| already retired when I read the story, which was written in defense of CW
| on the bands...I found it hard to believe that the Navy would discontinue
| visual, but stranger things have happened...
| 
| Grumman was situated in the middle of a densely populated neighborhood, a
| situation that did not exist when they first set up shop in the '30's...A
| radar tech accidently fired up the radar in an E-2C one night and tore up
| TV reception in the neighborhood, prompting a flood of telephone calls to
| the control tower...The aircraft was jacked up for landing gear service
| so the "weight-on-wheels" was inoperative...Weight on wheels eliminates
| the ability to retract the landing gear and transmit with the radar..
| This incident made the possibility that communication between ships was
| knocked out believable...
| 
| As I remember the story, it was submitted to the publication by someone
| who claimed to be there when it happened...I am going to continue to
| research my "library" to see if I can find it...I thought maybe there
| would be someone else on the reflector who also read it and could fill in
| the blanks...
| 
| Jerry, wa2dkg
| 
| Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 15:50:15 -0800 (PST)
| From: Denis Dimick <[email protected]>
| To: [email protected]
| Cc: [email protected]
| Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Re: Cw in the military
| 
| One more urban ledgan dies a slow pianful death..
| 
| 
| On Sat, 22 Feb 2003 [email protected] wrote:
| 
| > Regarding the below, as a Chief Petty Officer in the USN, I know that
| the 
| > signalmen are still required to know and be able to use CW with the
| visual 
| > lamps designed for that purpose.  Just like the fact that most battle 
| > communication within a modern Navy ship is still by sound-powered
| phones, much 
| > line of sight ship to ship communication is still by CW lamps and
| signal flags.
| > 
| > As a fire control radar specialist, I can also tell you that there
| never was, 
| > nor ever will be a radar system that could blank all other radio
| communications.
| > 
| > Cheers,
| > Chuck
| > KG6GUF
| > 
| > A few years back I read an interesting story about the discontinuance
| of
| > CW in the military...I am working from memory and all the facts might
| not
| > be accurate...I haven't been able to locate the source of the story, I
| > thought it was the QCWA journal, but I have all the back issues and
| > cannot find it...
| > 
| > As I recall, a Navy task force was conducting sea trials on a new
| > radar...Aircraft were launched, the radar was fired up, and all
| > communication between ships was wiped out...They didn't want to shut
| the
| > radar down until all aircraft were retrieved...One ship went dead in
| the
| > water and was being overtaken by another ship...The only means they had
| > to communicate was by visual CW with lamps, and there was a collision
| > because nobody aboard knew CW, the "dead" mode...
| > 
| > Jerry, wa2dkg
| 
| --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
| multipart/alternative
|   text/plain (text body -- kept)
|   text/html
| The reason this message is shown is because the post was in HTML
| or had an attachment.  Attachments are not allowed.  To learn how
| to post in Plain-Text go to: http://www.expita.com/nomime.html  ---
| _______________________________________________
| Elecraft mailing list: [email protected]
| You must be a list member to post to the list. 
| Postings must be plain text (no HTML or attachments). 
| See: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
| Elecraft Web Page: http://www.elecraft.com
| 
| 