[Amps] Good engineering...More Car Computer Horror Stories

[Bill VanAlstyne W5WVO]

Uh, yeah. 100 watts power out. To what kind of antenna, mounted where, with 
how much gain, in what direction... ?

This all reminds me, perversely, of the early WW I fighter planes, where 
they initially mounted a machine gun in front of the pilot's cockpit -- so 
it had to shoot through the propeller. They actually did that. When a 
sufficient number of planes crashed because of having their propellers shot 
off by their own pilots, the "re-engineering" of this problem was to place a 
layer of steel armor on the inside of the propeller blades. This brilliant 
solution, besides degrading the plane's performance somewhat, did in fact 
REDUCE the number of planes crashed as a result of their propellers being 
shot off by their pilots. Brilliant! This solution was deemed acceptable for 
some time, until some enterprising fellow (forget which side he was on) 
invented an interlocking mechanism that allowed the gun to shoot only during 
those portions of the propeller's rotation when it was not in the line of 
fire...

Point is, people will typically do as little as possible toward solving a 
problem if the risks posed by the problem are deemed acceptable in terms of 
cost -- in dollars or even, as above, in lives. Things haven't changed much. 
Greed and the callous willingness to disregard the safety of OTHER people 
(not oneself, of course) tend to trump people's sense of social 
responsibility, if any. Interestingly enough, the people most likely to 
manifest this disregard are the same people who tend to rise to the level of 
decision-making power. Funny how that works.

Bill W5WVO

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Gary Smith" <wa6fgi at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 9:29 AM
To: "Randall, Randy" <Randy.Randall at healthall.com>; "'Carl'" 
<km1h at jeremy.mv.com>; "'Rob Stampfli'" <rob at cboh.org>; <amps at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [Amps] Good engineering...More Car Computer Horror Stories

> I have in my files a very nice letter from Toyota stating that it was okay 
> with running up to 100 W Po in my `09 Scion. Can make it available upon 
> request with my address redacted should anyone be interested.
> Gary...wa6fgi
>  ----- Original Message ----- 
>  From: Randall, Randy
>  To: 'Carl' ; 'Rob Stampfli' ; amps at contesting.com
>  Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 8:21 AM
>  Subject: Re: [Amps] Good engineering...More Car Computer Horror Stories
>
>
>  Sounds like they still are!
>