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

[Joe - WDØM]

Maybe that's why the one I launched from Vandenberg only made it half way 
to Kwajalein?  ;-)

Joe
WDØM
Colonel, USAF (Ret)

At 11:08 AM 11/18/2004, Alan C. Zack wrote:
>One of the projects I worked on at the former Rockwell Intl (now part of 
>Boeing) was the MX Missile project.  Down the hall from us was the 
>Minuteman labs.  Going to the Minuteman Labs was like going to a 
>museum.  The Minuteman guidance system used peanut tubes in it's circuitry.
>
>Jim Miller wrote:
>
>>You might be right.  Everything I saw was solid state but there may have
>>been something in there that was tube.  It was the Minuteman system that we
>>were installing.
>>73, de Jim KG0KP
>>----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Katz" <stevek at jmr.com>
>>To: "'Jim Miller'" <JimMiller at STL-Online.Net>; <towertalk at contesting.com>
>>Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 3:30 PM
>>Subject: RE: [BULK] - Re: [TowerTalk] Vacuum tube 100 years old today
>>
>>
>>>>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
>
>--
>__________________________________________________________________________
>Alan Zack
>Amateur Radio Station K7ACZ
>Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
>Quality Engineer, The Boeing Company, Retired
>Aviation Chief Warrant Officer, U.S. Coast Guard, Retired
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