[BULK] - Re: [TowerTalk] Vacuum tube 100 years old today

[Steve Katz]

> I was in missile class in the Air Force in 1963 and the lab and course was
> entirely in tubes even though the missile was entirely in transistors.
> The
> adaptation was very short (minutes, maybe and hour) and said that
> transistors worked like tubes except at lower voltages and power levels.
> That was all there was to transistors !!!  Not bad really for a class that
> hadn't been rewritten yet (and that may have been all the instructor knew
> at
> that time).
> 
> 73, de Jim KG0KP
	[Steve Katz]  I'll bet the missle wasn't "all transistors" in 1963.
The guidance and targeting systems used high voltage microwave tubes
throughout the 1970s, including SAMs and AAMs.  Of course, a lot of those
late 1950s designs didn't actually reach production levels until the
seventies (no kidding).  We were building (Army) Hawks designed in '63 at
Raytheon/Martin (forebody/aftbody) in 1978; the Patriot didn't go into full
production until after that, and its acquisition system still used
tubes...ditto the Sidewinder, Sparrow, etc.  -WB2WIK/6