The one that failed to diagnose Ebola and sent the infectious patient home with some antibiotics. I wonder if they are on the narrow Obamacare network? According to the TV news, a nurse actually asked the patient about travel, and the patient said he was from Liberia. The nurse didn't tell the doctors, she just typed it into the electronic medical records system. The doctors didn't read the electronic system. The hospital is blaming the computer system. I'm thinking that nurse should have known that Liberia was Ebola country and she should have brought it to everyone's attention. As it is, the electronic medical records system recorded it for later embarrassment of the hospital. Obamacare has been demanding everyone go over to insecure electronic systems, claiming they improve care. Right. In actual fact, they make everyone's medical records available to anyone who cares to snoop, such as potential employers.
Any how, I would avoid Texas Health Presbyterian. The goofed, big time, allowing an infected Ebola patient to wander around infecting people.
Friday, October 3, 2014
Australia's over-the-horizon radar.
Standard radar is strictly line of sight. It's like using a searchlight. The radar transmitter illuminates the target and some of the energy is reflected off the target back to the receiver where it is "seen". Should the target be over the horizon it is just out of view.
Down under, the Jindalee system uses extremely low frequencies, at least low for a radar. The Aviation Week article didn't mention the frequencies used, but its got to be 10 meters or longer. CB band and below. At low frequency the ionosphere acts as a mirror and reflects the transmitted pulse back down to the ground far beyond the horizon. The Australians have constructed three low frequency over-the-horizon (o-t-h) radars spread across their sub continent, looking northward, covering the sea between Australia and Indonesia.
O-t-h radar, since it reflects off the unstable and fluxuating ionospheric mirror, suffers from image distortions, blind spots, and difficulties computing range. You might say the picture is blurry. But usable. And operating three radar stations has got to be cheaper than flying reconnaisance, or launching recon satellites.
I notice that the o-t-h radar covers the sea areas in which they are still looking for that lost Malaysian airliner, the one that dropped off radar and was never heard from again. Could the searches be guided by Jindalee o-t-h radar tracks?
Down under, the Jindalee system uses extremely low frequencies, at least low for a radar. The Aviation Week article didn't mention the frequencies used, but its got to be 10 meters or longer. CB band and below. At low frequency the ionosphere acts as a mirror and reflects the transmitted pulse back down to the ground far beyond the horizon. The Australians have constructed three low frequency over-the-horizon (o-t-h) radars spread across their sub continent, looking northward, covering the sea between Australia and Indonesia.
O-t-h radar, since it reflects off the unstable and fluxuating ionospheric mirror, suffers from image distortions, blind spots, and difficulties computing range. You might say the picture is blurry. But usable. And operating three radar stations has got to be cheaper than flying reconnaisance, or launching recon satellites.
I notice that the o-t-h radar covers the sea areas in which they are still looking for that lost Malaysian airliner, the one that dropped off radar and was never heard from again. Could the searches be guided by Jindalee o-t-h radar tracks?
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Leaves are beginning too fall
Leaves will be quite good this weekend. By next weekend they will be mostly on the ground. Or brown.
Airborne tower of Babel
Long article in Aviation Week deploring the lack of a common data link standard between USAF combat aircraft. Apparently older aircraft like AWACs and F16's were equipped with a datalink system known as Link16. The newer F22 has a different system called IFDL and the even newer F35 has a system called MADL. As you might imagine, the various systems cannot talk to each other. There is a project, hoping for funding, to build a "translator" box that can talk to all three systems and translate between them.
Of course, old fogies like myself wonder just why such a datalink is needed. Is it to allow aircrews to websurf on their way to target?
Way back in the day, the F106 fighter had a data link to the SAGE centers. When it worked, it allowed the ground based SAGE computers to drive the horizontal situation display in the fighter, and set a steering needle to point to point right at the target. When it was feeling especially clever it could put a bright circle on the fighter's radarscope highlighting the area in which the target was expected to appear.
Headquarters ADC loved datalink (dollie they called it) and insisted upon its use on every practice intercept. When dollie broke, and the aircrew used trusty voice radio to get vector and altitude to target from the ground controller, HQ would go ballistic and chew out the controller, the aircrew, and avionics maintenance (me) over the "broken dollie sortie".
In actual fact, voice radio worked just fine, everyone knew the procedures, and it doesn't take long to say "Vector 034, Angels 18" over the air.
But HQ ADC was on a dollie kick and we all did a lot of running around to make them happy. Only the then new F106 had dollie. The older F102, F101, and F89 interceptors lacked it, and my controller friends always said the oldest (F89) was the most likely to score a kill. Dollie didn't make the F106 more effective.
Of course, old fogies like myself wonder just why such a datalink is needed. Is it to allow aircrews to websurf on their way to target?
Way back in the day, the F106 fighter had a data link to the SAGE centers. When it worked, it allowed the ground based SAGE computers to drive the horizontal situation display in the fighter, and set a steering needle to point to point right at the target. When it was feeling especially clever it could put a bright circle on the fighter's radarscope highlighting the area in which the target was expected to appear.
Headquarters ADC loved datalink (dollie they called it) and insisted upon its use on every practice intercept. When dollie broke, and the aircrew used trusty voice radio to get vector and altitude to target from the ground controller, HQ would go ballistic and chew out the controller, the aircrew, and avionics maintenance (me) over the "broken dollie sortie".
In actual fact, voice radio worked just fine, everyone knew the procedures, and it doesn't take long to say "Vector 034, Angels 18" over the air.
But HQ ADC was on a dollie kick and we all did a lot of running around to make them happy. Only the then new F106 had dollie. The older F102, F101, and F89 interceptors lacked it, and my controller friends always said the oldest (F89) was the most likely to score a kill. Dollie didn't make the F106 more effective.
Can he fire anyone?
OK, Obama dumped the head of secret service and appointed a new old guy. Name escapes me, despite a lotta TV coverage I haven't cuaght his name yet. Not a good sign.
Clearly Secret Service has some problems, fence jumpers making to the East Room, agents on trips getting drunk and laid, ex-con with a gun riding the elevator with the president.
I'd guess these problems come from ineffective supervisors, officers we called 'em in the military, dunno what the secret service calls 'em. To fix things, you gotta fire the ineffective supervisors and replace them with good people. Will the new guy (who is retired secret service and ought to know the people) be able to fire the inefficient? On his own say-so? Fairly quickly, like within a few weeks rather than after years of hearings and appeals? Does secret service have a union to protect the guilty? Are they under civil service, which basically forbids firing even for very strong cause?
Clearly Secret Service has some problems, fence jumpers making to the East Room, agents on trips getting drunk and laid, ex-con with a gun riding the elevator with the president.
I'd guess these problems come from ineffective supervisors, officers we called 'em in the military, dunno what the secret service calls 'em. To fix things, you gotta fire the ineffective supervisors and replace them with good people. Will the new guy (who is retired secret service and ought to know the people) be able to fire the inefficient? On his own say-so? Fairly quickly, like within a few weeks rather than after years of hearings and appeals? Does secret service have a union to protect the guilty? Are they under civil service, which basically forbids firing even for very strong cause?
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
F22 Raptor finally goes to war
They sent a couple of F22's into Syria the other night to bomb some big building in the boonies of Syria. Aviation Week has before and after reconnaissance photos. Shows a multi story flat roof building, surrounded by a paved parking lot and outside the parking lot, a really stout fence. No cars in the parking lot, not even painted lines. The after photo shows a whacking big hole in the roof and piles of debris all over the parking lot. Hole in one. You can see where ISIS has shoveled paths thru the debris to get vehicles in and out.
Of course you gotta wonder why Aviation Week gives such nice coverage to a fairly plain vanilla ground attack mission. An old F-4 Phantom could have done this one. F22 is the super expensive, super secret air-to-air fighter that got so expensive that defense secretary Gates canceled production after getting billed for only 187 aircraft. Final price was $130 million per airplane, which is a helova lotta money for a single seat fighter.
F22 is stealthy, hard to see on radar. To get stealthy, all ordinance and fuel is carried internally so it won't give a radar return. F22 had cute little missile bays, just big enough to take a Slammer air-to-air missile. To do the Syrian building, the F22's used 1000 pound, JDAM smart bombs. Those certainly won't fit in a missile bay barely large enough for a 4 inch diameter missile. 1000 pounders are better than a foot in diameter. Aviation Week didn't say how they hung the 1000 pounders on the aircraft, presumable on non stealthy under wing rails.
Of course you gotta wonder why Aviation Week gives such nice coverage to a fairly plain vanilla ground attack mission. An old F-4 Phantom could have done this one. F22 is the super expensive, super secret air-to-air fighter that got so expensive that defense secretary Gates canceled production after getting billed for only 187 aircraft. Final price was $130 million per airplane, which is a helova lotta money for a single seat fighter.
F22 is stealthy, hard to see on radar. To get stealthy, all ordinance and fuel is carried internally so it won't give a radar return. F22 had cute little missile bays, just big enough to take a Slammer air-to-air missile. To do the Syrian building, the F22's used 1000 pound, JDAM smart bombs. Those certainly won't fit in a missile bay barely large enough for a 4 inch diameter missile. 1000 pounders are better than a foot in diameter. Aviation Week didn't say how they hung the 1000 pounders on the aircraft, presumable on non stealthy under wing rails.
Win 8.1 does network nicely
It's not much of a network, just my router, Trusty Desktop (XP) and Flatbeast (skinny new laptop Win8.1). For just powering it up, Flatbeast found the wireless router, and got logged in. I actually had to go down to the router and push a magic router button that told it "new authorized member on wireless, let him in." Windows 8.1 supports a brand new networking concept call a HomeGroup, but XP does not. Win 8.1 also supports the older networking concept of Work Groups. By concept, we mean a protocol for saying hello, asking if anyone is home, and sharing files and printers. Workgroups have names, and all computers with the same work group name are allowed to play. Windows (all flavors) ships with it's Workgroup named WORKGROUP. Once connected, the files on the distant computer show up in "Network" looking just like files on the local drive. You can open them, move them around, and delete them. Win 8.1 is better at doing Workgroup than XP was. XP was picky about linking up, and often failed to find computers on the local area network. 8.1 is better.
On XP "share" meant mark a file or folder as visible over the network. Explorer allowed you to share files on a one by one, or a folder by folder basis. If you never shared any files the distant computer would not see any files.
On 8.1 the verb share means something else. When M$ invents something new they ought to give it a new name, just to avoid confusion. PITA. On 8.1 you don't get to share file by file, you can turn on sharing for the whole machine or nothing. Click on Control Panel. Click on Network and Sharing Center. Click on Advanced Sharing Options. Turn on the obvious things like Network Discovery and file and printer sharing. Click on save changes, and all your files become visible to distant computers.
The only people with access to my home network are family and friends and I don't have any files I need to conceal from anyone, so exposing every file on my harddrive to the local area network doesn't bother me. Your Mileage My Vary.
On XP "share" meant mark a file or folder as visible over the network. Explorer allowed you to share files on a one by one, or a folder by folder basis. If you never shared any files the distant computer would not see any files.
On 8.1 the verb share means something else. When M$ invents something new they ought to give it a new name, just to avoid confusion. PITA. On 8.1 you don't get to share file by file, you can turn on sharing for the whole machine or nothing. Click on Control Panel. Click on Network and Sharing Center. Click on Advanced Sharing Options. Turn on the obvious things like Network Discovery and file and printer sharing. Click on save changes, and all your files become visible to distant computers.
The only people with access to my home network are family and friends and I don't have any files I need to conceal from anyone, so exposing every file on my harddrive to the local area network doesn't bother me. Your Mileage My Vary.
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