*********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 9/6/2002 at 11:26 PM Brad Knowles wrote:
At 2:01 PM -0700 2002/09/06, Jeff Shultz wrote:
Said tube electronics were apparently more survivable against EMP effects. Or was that the point you were making? I think the real surprise was a toggle switch that Belenko said was supposed to be flipped only when told over the radio by higher headquarters. It changed the characteristics of the radar.... sort of a "go to war" mode vs. the standard training mode.
I wouldn't be too surprised. The Patriot has a clock problem, and can't be left turned on for an extended period of time. There are plenty of military systems everywhere in the world that have various operational issues that may not materially reduce their effectiveness in their official role, but which may make them less suitable for other roles.
Coonts has an inflated idea of what an outage there would do the
Actually I suspect it was an anti-jamming feature. Think about it.... the jammers would all be programmed based on the training mode, which presumably we would have heard before. All off the sudden this thing is broadcasting an entirely new signal... <snip> the
internet... but there is a lot of other stuff fairly nearby, isn't there?
What do you mean by "nearby"? Do you count the "TerraPOP"? Do you count Langley?
I thought that MAE-East was somewhere around there? I know that there is a fair amount of high-tech in that particular area. I don't know how far away Langley itself is.... another target was basically "The Mall" where it took out a couple of fly-by-wire Airbuses. Interesting book from a techno-thriller standpoint. Just don't confuse it with reality.<G> -- Jeff Shultz Network Support Technician Willamette Valley Internet 503-769-3331 (Stayton) 503-390-7000 (Salem) tech@wvi.com ...most of us have as our claim to fame the ability to talk to inanimate objects and convince them they want to listen to us. -- Valdis Kletnieks in a.s.r