Re: Conelrad question

[mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Your idea would have totally defeated the purpose of
>Conelrad, which came about after it was reported that
>the Japanese planes that attacked Pearl Harbor had used
>commercial AM broadcast signals to home in on Honolulu.

        The CONELRAD thing is absolutely a classic case of fighting the
last war and a great snapshot of the 1940s-50s Cold War mentality. If the
commies were coming to drop 10-megaton atomic bombs, whether the plane was
two miles off course wasn't going to matter. Plus there was radar by then.
But the emergency broadcasting system design worried so much about the
Pearl Harbor thing that, as Dan says, it would have been extremely poor in
providing the public with warnings, info., etc.