A long time ago when the Titan Missile sites that ringed Tucson were being shut
down, the Air Force approached Pima Community College with a request for a class
that would prepare some of the techs who were losing their jobs with training in
microwave theory and measurements. A coworker of mine at Hughes, who had been
tenured at the U of AZ, ("They can't fire you but they can make you want to
quit") agreed to take the job of teaching the theory part but didn't want to
teach lab work. He asked me to share the job.
I held the labs in their shop on the base. I was astounded when at the end of a
session they put all of the equipment in storage cabinets, wiped down the
workbenches and mopped the floors. The equipment included an HP5245L counter,
unplugged and tucked away for the night.
I decided my next session would include a discussion of time bases and why you
needed to keep them powered at all times. Afterwords, I was approached by a
woman Sgt. who told me that when she was sent out to a silo to make an
adjustment, that from the sound of it included an hour or so comparison to a
WWVB receiver, she instead just threw the '5245 in the truck and used it to
tweak whatever it was. I was forever grateful that we never fired any of these
in anger.
Wes N7WS
On 1/5/2020 7:50 PM, Bob kb8tq wrote:
Hi
Well, back in the 1970’s the orders went out for most government labs that they
*must*
power gear down at night. They had to re-wire so that the OCXO’s did not stay
powered
on …… Apparently somebody did the math and decided it did matter.
Bob
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