[600MRG] "New" versus "Old"

[Michael Mussler]

Amen Steve… very well said. Far too much faith is placed in high tech solutions and the paradox is that the same technology becomes increasingly vulnerable to unforeseen events. 

I've spent most of my working life in aerospace, supporting high tech comm related projects. But in a former work life, I sailed in the Merchant Marine. It was an interesting period of time because I witnessed firsthand the transition from MF and HF CW based comms and celestial navigation techniques to satellite based comms and GPS based navigation. One of my favorite sea stories involves a humorous situation when I was third mate on the USNS Bowditch (a Victory Ship built in 1944). Due to the nature of our work we had two comm systems on the ship. One was a WW2 vintage MF/HF CW system manned by our merchant marine radio operator, "Sparks" (who was also a ham). The other was a state-of-the-art, HF RTTY crypto system manned by a US Navy detachment. A week out of Port Canaveral the US Navy ops had to hand off their message traffic to our merchant marine "Sparks" because for three days they couldn't get through the summertime QRN and they weren't able to copy their fleet broadcasts. That evening at dinner "Sparks" made sure he passed by the captain's table where the Navy CO was also seated. The skipper asked Sparks if he got his message traffic through. Sparks replied, "I sure did, first try using morse code on my "obsolete" World War 2 RCA equipment!" The Navy CO's face turned three shades of red and you can bet there were fireworks from the Navy's radio shack that night.

By the late 1970s our military had completely abandoned CW in favor of more automated, solid state based systems requiring personnel with less training and fewer skills to operate them. At the same time our Cold War foes (the Soviets) relied on vacuum tube technology and morse code based traffic systems. Concerns awakened over EMP and the vulnerability of solid state electronics to this threat. Our military was convinced the Russians were still using vacuum tube technology specifically to survive such an event. In reality it was because their electronics technology was lagging ours in that area. Nowadays designing for NEMP and LEMP (nuclear and lightning EMP) is a major requirement in DoD contracts. Despite our best efforts to the contrary, only time and future disaster events will reveal other vulnerabilities embedded in modern technology. The time tested techniques and technology from the past will be known and proven quantities. We must keep open minds to the reality that there is a place for "new" and "old" things alike...

73
Mike
AI8Z
WD2XSH/12