This last week since I retired has me thinking of things in the dim past. Some should stay there, others have lessons to be learned.
I was assigned to a USAF-R Wing as NCOIC of Comm One of the first issues that came my way was an issue with the command post HF radio system. They alleged the antenna was broken keeping them from contacting the aircraft. I looked at the antenna and stated, nope, that's not it. it was the '160 meter' element that had an issue, and we were not using any of those frequencies. I went and established several "line checks" with air bases around the world. What I found, was the issue was the gap between the UHF coverage and the HF coverage at the time. I explained that the issue was an inappropriate antenna. The response I got back was "that's the best antenna money can buy', 'fix it'. so I ordered the unnecessary parts, repaired the antenna with the same results. I then borrowed a NVIS ( Near Verticle Incident ) antenna and had an operator maintain comm during an entire mission using a manpack hf radio, not the huge Pacer Bounce Harris system radio the CP had. This swayed the command staff not a bit " that's the best antenna money can buy". so I strung up a single wire between the CP and the parachute tower with a remote switch "distant, local" and told them the antenna had been modified to meet their needs. The tuner on the pacer bounce handled the random wire ok, and it was mostly in the orientation they needed, so it worked.
The single 10 ga copper wire out performed the huge Log Yagi we had. Use the data to support the conclusions, not make the data fit to support the outcomes.
Don't get caught up in the biggest = the baddest.
I was assigned to a USAF-R Wing as NCOIC of Comm One of the first issues that came my way was an issue with the command post HF radio system. They alleged the antenna was broken keeping them from contacting the aircraft. I looked at the antenna and stated, nope, that's not it. it was the '160 meter' element that had an issue, and we were not using any of those frequencies. I went and established several "line checks" with air bases around the world. What I found, was the issue was the gap between the UHF coverage and the HF coverage at the time. I explained that the issue was an inappropriate antenna. The response I got back was "that's the best antenna money can buy', 'fix it'. so I ordered the unnecessary parts, repaired the antenna with the same results. I then borrowed a NVIS ( Near Verticle Incident ) antenna and had an operator maintain comm during an entire mission using a manpack hf radio, not the huge Pacer Bounce Harris system radio the CP had. This swayed the command staff not a bit " that's the best antenna money can buy". so I strung up a single wire between the CP and the parachute tower with a remote switch "distant, local" and told them the antenna had been modified to meet their needs. The tuner on the pacer bounce handled the random wire ok, and it was mostly in the orientation they needed, so it worked.
The single 10 ga copper wire out performed the huge Log Yagi we had. Use the data to support the conclusions, not make the data fit to support the outcomes.
Don't get caught up in the biggest = the baddest.
