From: haynes@cats.ucsc.edu (Jim Haynes)
Subject: Re: History question
Organization: University of California; Santa Cruz
Lines: 30
NNTP-Posting-Host: hobbes.ucsc.edu


In article <1qnroe$d1n@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> wb8foz@skybridge.scl.cwru.edu (David Lesher) writes:
>An now-deceased prof told us willing students about a project he had
>worked on during WWII.
>
>They needed a mega-power PA with very clear audio quality. The purpose
>was to bellow at refugees from aircraft.
>
>Their solution was a giant compressed-air source, and a horn with
>parallel shutters worked by a small audio system. I think he said it
>worked very well, thus the War Dept. cancelled the project ;_}.

Gee, I got the idea from somewhere that devices like this were in common
use in WWII, so that commanders on board ships could bellow at the troops
landing on a beach, for example.

Which reminds me of an anecdote from the mid-60s.  At a communications
conference a Marine Corps communications officer said he didn't care
much for all the spread-spectrum multi-access expensive communication
systems that people were talking about at the time; what he wanted
was a kilowatt broadcast transmitter on the ship and a $4.95 Japanese
transistor radio stuck in the ear of every Marine hitting the beach.
-- 
haynes@cats.ucsc.edu
haynes@cats.bitnet

"Ya can talk all ya wanna, but it's dif'rent than it was!"
"No it aint!  But ya gotta know the territory!"
        Meredith Willson: "The Music Man"