Good Morning Group, I just have share this.
Before I retired from the Navy, I was serving with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as one of the assistants to the communications guru, one particularily gruff vice admiral who I'm pretty sure coined the phrase "lead, follow or get the hell out of the way", and liked to continually stir whatever pot he happened to be in charge of at the time. For whatever reason, he called me into his office, one day, and asked me if the 19 inch rack panel was a standard or a tradition. I had long since learned not to ask him why he was curious, I just charged off to find out. I uncovered countless references to 19" racks, and a lot of things which specified it, but failed to find out anything about its genisus. Since failure was not an option, I reported that it had something to do with the width of hatches on early submarines, but an original order - if one existed - was lost in the fog of the past. In any event, the 19 inch "standard" was so deeply ingrained in the military (and a good bit of civilian industry as well) that it might as well have come down as the 11th commandment. He grudently accepted my "findings", but continued to press the issue, claiming that if services were going to continue to support 19" racks, there needed to be a mil spec actually in place. Thankfully I retired before being thrown into that briar patch. I have wondered, over the years, if I missed anything. Does anyone REALLY know whether or not the 19 inch is a "standard" or a tradition. 73, Tom, KJ3D (apparently with too-little-else-to-worry-about-today) _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
