Jul 31 2006

Journalists Playing 007

Published by at 7:19 pm under All General Discussions

Journalists can be such ignoramouses. Check out this hyperventilating piece about a ground station in New Zealand, which one writer attempts to understand in the most hillarious ways. In fact, some of this is a direct rip-off of Wikipedia’s entry on the site. My favorite line is this one:

Its two satellite interception dishes (shielded from public view by giant domes) intercept a huge volume of telephone calls, telexes, faxes, e-mail and computer data communications.

Emphasis mine. I could go on and on correcting all the errors in the silly speculation, but then I would also be giving these fools help in understanding what they are dealing with. So I will just share this chuckle with you good folks who read this site. Those ‘big domes’ are called radomes (the Wikipedia link has a picture of them), and they are not there to hide the dishes, they are there to protect the dishes from storms, high winds and corrosion. The domes don’t hide much from a trained eye. I can guess the size of the dish from the size of the radome and do a lot of backwards engineering from there. But domes like this are only seen on satellite ground stations – so they aren’t hiding much.

NASA once attempted to put an unprotected antenna in Puerto Rico, trying to save some money by not buying the Radome. Sure enough a hurricane came through and knocked it down. When they rebuilt the second one they bought the radome. Radomes have a purpose and it is a pretty simple one.

Wikipedia has a great map feature, which tells a lot about those two antennas. The location is pretty far south, which actually is not optimal for the purposes assumed by all the leftwing sites I perused. It is also blocked by large mountains to the north, making certain viewing angles tough. Let’s just say these leftwing sites have as much understanding of the possible applications of this site as they have in understanding what those ‘large domes’ are for. New Zealand has plenty of storms that could tear apart an open satellite dish, and being tens of miles from the ocean means the ability to block out the sea air will minimize the salt corrosion. Anyway, thought I would share some fun at the lefties’ expense.

5 responses so far

5 Responses to “Journalists Playing 007”

  1. HaroldHutchison says:

    The HTML looks a little screwy…

  2. AJStrata says:

    Thanks Harold! Fixed it.

  3. carol johnson says:

    AJ,

    Speaking of journalists, I found this extremely intersting if not entirely useful:

    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1675313/posts#comment?q=1

    Dynasty of record restocking – Pinch’s reign sees big Times’ share buybacks
    Boston Herald ^ | Monday, July 31, 2006 | Brett Arends

    Posted on 07/31/2006 2:38:47 PM PDT by PajamaTruthMafia

    The famous Sulzberger dynasty is quietly tightening its financial grip on the New York Times and the Boston Globe, a new analysis shows.

    And it’s using shareholders’ cash, instead of its own, to do it.

    …..

    Look at the 15 yr chart. It was and has been undervalued for years! That company could easily be worth 3 times what it is, if managed moderately well. And yet this Dandy Trust Fundee managed to drive the price lower and lower ! And then he buys back stock with profits generated in good measure on the backs of stockholders ! Malfeasance and theft.

    …..

    A very interesting read and be sure to scan the comments. Hmmmm… “Mr. Sultzberger, SEC on line 2!”

    Carol

  4. MerlinOS2 says:

    Carol

    But! , ya gotta give him his good points……the tree huggers have gotta be applauding all the trees he is keeping from the slaughter!

  5. MerlinOS2 says:

    AJ

    When I was much younger and stationed on submarines at Pearl Harbor, one of our crew habits was that on coming home after a WestPac deployment we would proceed to the southwest corner of Oahu where a radome was and perform the ritual offer of numerous cases of beer to the God of the GolfBall!