OT: more Woodpecker pix (not birds)

[Fred (FL)]

This was supposedly, part of their early warning
over-the-horizon ICBM missle tracking, missle
attack alert system.  You got to admit - this
dwarfs the freedom antennas of VOA.  Wow,
RF antenna-design must be in solid shape
in Russia.  When I learned Karnaugh Mapping
in school - they used to talk about the
students in Russia, having to work with
12-variable karnaugh maps.

Back in the cold war, they talked about the
russian jet fighters - which still had vacuum
tube VHF rigs in them.  Apparently, they had
a better natural anti-jamming ability, that
some of our hot U.S. fighters of those days.

Fred, N3CSY


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[N2EY]

In a message dated 6/9/07 5:37:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[hidden email] writes:


> You got to admit - this
> dwarfs the freedom antennas of VOA.  

Well, maybe.

But it doesn't dwarf the antennas of NAA (Cutler, ME) or SAQ (Grimeton,
Sweden), or many others.

What's unique about it is the directivity.
>
>
> Back in the cold war, they talked about the
> russian jet fighters - which still had vacuum
> tube VHF rigs in them.  Apparently, they had
> a better natural anti-jamming ability, that
> some of our hot U.S. fighters of those days.

Nope.

The Soviets used tubes in their electronics back then.
because their available industrial resources couldn't
make and support solid-state electronics of the type needed.

They could have imported all the solid-state devices needed,
but they decided it was more important not to become
dependent on foreign technology.

We could learn something from that.

Even today, tubes have some specialized uses. Every microwave oven has one.
And the New Horizons mission to Pluto, which is the fastest manmade object in
history, has a couple of Traveling Wave Tubes (TWTs) aboard for the radio.

73 de Jim, N2EY



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[Phil Kane-2]

On Sat, 9 Jun 2007 21:30:57 EDT, [hidden email] wrote:

>The Soviets used tubes in their electronics back then.
>because their available industrial resources couldn't
>make and support solid-state electronics of the type needed.

>They could have imported all the solid-state devices needed,
>but they decided it was more important not to become
>dependent on foreign technology.

  The reason that I heard was that tube technology was far more
  EMP-survivable than the solid-state designs of the time.

--
   73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane
   Elecraft K2/100   s/n 5402



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[N2EY]

In a message dated 6/10/07 9:35:25 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [hidden email]
writes:

> On Sat, 9 Jun 2007 21:30:57 EDT, [hidden email] wrote:
>
> >The Soviets used tubes in their electronics back then.
> >because their available industrial resources couldn't
> >make and support solid-state electronics of the type needed.
>
> >They could have imported all the solid-state devices needed,
> >but they decided it was more important not to become
> >dependent on foreign technology.
>
>   The reason that I heard was that tube technology was far more
>   EMP-survivable than the solid-state designs of the time.
>
>

Hello Phil,

As I understood it, solid state *systems* could be made as EMP-survivable as
tube stuff, even then. But that meant using protection devices - more stuff
that had to be imported. It also meant dependence on foreign techniques.

The Soviets had done plenty of reverse-engineering, such as their copy of the
B-29 that was such an exact copy of an interred US plane that it included
things like replicating the interior paint scheme, which was two-toned because
the factory ran out of one color and substituted another, and minor mistakes
like a 1/16" hole that served no purpose at all.

This actually ties into another thread - the one about the Elecraft source
code, and its not being openly available.

It seems to me that Elecraft is doing the right thing by not releasing it.
For one thing, they've made revisions so readily available that it's no big
deal, and with the K3 it will be even easier. More important, though, keeping the
code under wraps prevents cloning/copying of the Elecraft design, which would
otherwise be pretty easy to do because almost all of the parts are standard
catalog items.

73 de Jim, N2EY


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