[Milsurplus] L.O. radiation

[J. Forster]

This afternoon, I had a chance to chat with a ex-Navy Airborne Radar Tech who
trained for the Pacific theater, but the war ended just as he was about to ship
out, and I asked him about the LO business.

He confirmed that airplanes were electrically noisy, especially the engines and
magnetos, despite the shielding. He was also unaware of any real effort to DF
ships by their LO emissions, but commented that the Germans and Japanese were
VERY good at DFing clandestine transmitters (coast watchers, for example).

His opinion is that the LO DFing is largely a myth to cover up the cracking of
Enigma and Purple Ciphers and also microwave radar. (He was trained on X band
search radars), Also, until about 1943, subs had to surface to recharge their
batteries and made good radar targets. X band was important because the Germans
had no X band warning receivers, so the airplanes could sneak up on them.

-John