1950’s Technology and the standing of watch

personal history / March 2, 2019

Shown below Is a LORAN “A” timer. It is the main controls for monitoring the radio signal of a now long obsolete and discontinued aid to navigation.

It all starts with a stable 100KHZ sine wave which gets multiplied, amplified and then synchronized with a master primary station.  Loran stations operates in groups of three with one master primary and two slave secondary stations.  A boat on the ocean would receive signals from all three and by means of triangulation determine the boats location on the high seas usually within a half a mile.  Not bad for the time.

The electrical drawer on the right, third from the bottom  housed the crystal oscillator oven,  yes, radio crystals, used since the 1920’s  That made standing watches a lot more intense because the crystal had to be maintained at exactly the correct temperature to ensure a steady 100KHZ frequency.

1950s-technology

The 100KHZ base frequency was where it all started. If the Frequency drifted the signal synchronization was lost and alarms would sound and the deviations would be recorded on the chart recorder shown on the left. One would have to practically stand his entire watch in front of those oscilloscopes with your right hand on the dial regulating the temperature of the oven that housed the crystal oscillator

But when I was there we had some state of the art 1970’s technology. To the right is a cesium oscillator. This unit was able to maintain a steady 100KHZ sine wave with no drifting at all. Which made the system more reliable. Which made watches much more relaxed.

sid-wright

This is another one of my station mates. His name is Sid W. As you can see quite a bookworm.  This is where we spent most of our time on watch. A multiband radio, transmitter, and though not shown a teletype machine which we used for messaging other loran stations and communicating with headquarters. When sending you would type out the message on a paper strip by punching holes in it.  This is what texting was in the seventies.

On the wall behind Sid are the alarm boxes, all green.  Through the opening you can see the transmitter and the power amplifier to the left. These things were huge, 1 megawatt of pulsed power we put out. the metal unit closest was the switch unit.  All the equipment had backup, one on-air, one stand-by.  Current, voltage, ant Watts readings were taken and recorded every hour.  routine maintenance and good troubleshoot skills a must.

It was good duty, especially if you were on the 11am to 7pm watch.  enough spare time to read, think, make phone calls to home

In Summer it never gets dark, at 3:30 am it’s as bright as noon. And your the only one awake. In winter, darkness 20 hours a day or should I say night.

Of course staying awake while on watch is a prerequisite.  NO DOZ and coffee were always available. On rare occasions a ‘crossroad’.

A year in Kodiak Alaska.  I had more fun then was legally allowed.

It was a long time ago. But such a good time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Least we Forget, Islamic terrorism did this.

Social commentary / September 11, 2016

I remember being at work when the first reports came. All work for the day ceased.  Perhaps it was the same for our parents when Pearl Harbor happened. The absolute horror of it all.

The difference though was this wasn’t an island in the middle of the Pacific.  This was New York City, and we watched unfold in real time.

And nothing would ever be the same.

Remember the victims, and especially the heroes.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NythatwoSWw

Autumn begins for us, and for America?

Social commentary / September 7, 2016

Hope everyone had a good labor day holiday.  Been busy with lots of chores to get ready because…

The leaves are starting to turn colors. The air is crisper. It’s getting dark earlier. This coming election will determine wither a darkness of a different kind descends upon the American nation.

According to a CNN poll today, Trump is ahead by 2. And the media spins like a top.

This is our Choice; Trump, a bombastic individual from New York who was not a politician.  A millionaire who earned his fortune in construction and real estate development, creating jobs and tax revenue, who apparently on a whim decided to run for President. He struck a chord with Republican voters fed up with a political party with no balls. In spite of some tactics that I thought were…tacky, he won the nomination far and square.

Of course the Republican establishment has thrown a hissy fit.  Some even proclaiming that they were going to vote for…her.  This is among the reasons that the Republican Party is also known as the “stupid party’!

On the other side we have Hillary Clinton who in a just world would be behind bars instead of running for POTUS.  She’s a criminal,  she’s incompetent and she has a “D” by her name. That “D” and having female genitalia apparently gives her a pass from law enforcement (thanks to Obama’s Justice department) and of course from her sycophant press. The socialist ideology is a big part of it also.

I fully expect Vermont will vote for Hillary, and will vote back in old “leaking Leahy”.  I hope I’m wrong.

Perhaps Vermonters will wake up after a couple of thousand illegal aliens immigrants from the middle east and central America are settled in Chittenden county bringing their customs along with them. And the Federal government decides that Vermont needs gun control. But it will be too late.

And let’s not even talk about the economy…20 trillion in the red!

Elections have consequences. Think before you vote.

 

 

 

Why isn’t this taught in our schools?

Social commentary / September 2, 2016

From the website The New Criterian. “The house is on fire.”

By Gary Saul Morson

Read it all.

 

The idea that truth and morality have no objective basis but are simply what power says they are, is, of course, also a key tenet of many current postmodernists. Society more and more teaches us to regard each other in terms of good and evil groups. No one seems more filled with hate than those who discover it in others. Could the answer to Courtois’s question be simpler than he suspects? Maybe the reason intellectuals often speak more harshly of Reagan than of Stalin is that a substantial portion of them actually prefer Stalinism?

Today one hears that neuroscientists will soon be able to read thoughts from the outside. What would Stalin have done with such technology? Perhaps my training as a Russian specialist distorts my judgment, but as I contemplate the ideas spreading from the academy through society, I fear, a century after the Russian Revolution, a tyranny greater than Stalin’s. Comrades, the house is on fire.

“Give me four years…” Lenin

Social commentary / August 30, 2016

American progressives have had fifty.

One of the main goals of the progressives was the total takeover of the education indoctrination of America’s youth. As they have also filled the ranks of journalism it’s no surprise that often you have to read the press from Great Briton to find out what’s happening in your own country.

Case in point this story from the Daily Mail .  The Principal has taken on himself to protect the feelings of Hispanic students (who are probably here illegally).

Of course this illegal immigrant student waves Mexican flag as she crosses public college graduation stage  in California.

Nothing like having your nose rubbed in it.

If Hillary is elected say goodbye to America as we have known it. Young Americans will probably never know what they threw away.

Truth and integrity

Social commentary / August 27, 2016

I’ve always been a Star Trek Fan. Out of all the different incarnations DS9 was always my favorite. And the episode “In the pale moonlight” was my favorite episode of DS9. In the episode Sisko wrestles with his conscience that he has to compromise his integrity and self respect. That he will have to lie, cheat, bribe, and be an accessary to criminal activity for the possible greater good.

Avery Brooks gives an outstanding performance. It makes you think.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StF9jrhw-pU

Now lets be honest with ourselves.  To people still have a “moral code” anymore?  When it comes to these people advancing a certain ideology the answer is an emphatic NO!!!  Since 1789 left wing political movements under the banner of “progress” seem to have a penchant for creating “rivers of blood”.

The Bolshevik Revolution, another example of mass murder justified as the “progress of humanity”.  In both cases there was no spiritual brake, no bourgeois morality. To this we can add the Chinese Revolution where Mao will murder 45 million people during the so called “Great Leap Forward”.  And of course the Cuban and Cambodian revolutions, thousands, no millions die for the sake of an ideology that turns people into slaves of the almighty state.

“A lie told often enough becomes the truth”  V. Lenin

Once upon a time a politician caught bald-faced lying to the American public was toast. That my be still true if you have an “R” by your name.  But ever since William J. Clinton made lying “cool” , if your a Democrat you’ll in all probability never be called on it by the major media. Which has long discarded the mask and have willingly become the propaganda arm of the progressive Democrat party. They will to whatever is necessary to install the most corrupt politician in American history that if elected could change the nature of the America we know forever. The Constitution, ethics, and virtue, and truth be damn. For Power is everything if it’s for the greater good. And they will decide what is good.

The “Stormtroopers” appear to be already here. Did the local police have orders?

Who knows? Maybe by the 23rd century ethics and virtue will make a comeback.

 

 

9 O.D’s 1 D.O.A.

Social commentary / August 22, 2016

Opiate addiction has reached epidemic proportions in Vermont and all of New England. Last weekend as reported in the local media there were 9 overdoses, one resulting in death.

How did this happen?  Well it’s nothing new, people have been addicted to all kinds of substances. Tobacco probably being the first.  Europeans never thought that inhaling smoke was a fun thing to do until they saw the Native Americans doing it way back in the day. Talk about Red Mans revenge.

Tobacco addiction cost me my oldest best friend to lung cancer.  But it’s legal, and governments collect revenue from its sale.

Some drug addictions start because of physical PAIN.  A drug relieves the pain.  The problem starts when the pain goes away but the drug is needed just to feel normal.

Cocaine, crystal meth, acid, heroin, fentanyl, oxycodone, alcohol, the list is long.  The casualty lists include the unknown and the well known, people at the the bottom of the barrel,  wealthy people who live in mansions.

In many cases people who sell narcotics are addicts themselves. It’s similar to selling Amway Several years ago I served on a jury trying a central Vermont man on the charge of distributing cocaine. He had a stable of addicts who sold the drug for him in return for portion of the product to feed their habits. He never touched it himself. He just did it for the money. The case against him was so strong after the prosecution rested he and his lawyer through in the towel. He got twenty years.

As I stated before, drug addiction has been here a long time, but its never seemed to be this bad. Especially in rural, small town America.

I blame most of it on 3 generations of dumbed down education. the breakdown of family and moral values.  The banning of moral education in schools (who are we to judge) No decent jobs. no future except staying on the government teat. And for that you have to vote democrat.

I must confess that I’m no choirboy. I went through a  “fear and loathing” period myself. Perhaps the one thing that saved me from a wasted life of addiction was my upbringing and the fact that I simply couldn’t afford the shit, and committing crimes to satisfy an addiction was not an option. I was busted once for possession  and almost spent a night in jail. fortunately a friend posted bail. That was as close as I ever wanted to come.

I’ll leave you with a song from my youth.  Relevant today even more.

John Kay certainly doesn’t sound like a liberal here.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqz47xTF9N0