Re: Conelrad question

["A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@world.std.com>]

On 26 Oct 2000,  dan.strassberg@att.net wrote:

> The idea had a lot of holes in it. While I was in 
> college, I heard one test in the Albany NY area. Four 
> stations alternated on 640--590, 810, 850, and 980. (850 
> has been dark since the early '50s.) On 1240 there were 
> four others: 1240, 1400, 1460, and 1540. The number of 
> stations on both channels was inadequate and there was 
> no signal at all in some time intervals. The result was 
> that the signal was barely listenable and if important 
> civil defense info had been broadcast, a lot of people 
> would not have been able to make it out.

I think I remember that test, too, sometime around 1955 or 56.  I remember 
listening to Conelrad and thinking something was wrong with the radio 
because the signal kept fading in and out.  My mother explained that it 
was supposed to do that.
 
After all, in those 
> days people were building fallout shelters deep 
> underground. Many people would probably have suffocated 
> if they ever had to use those shelters, but they knew 
> that the telephone lines above ground would not 
> withstand a nuclear attack.

I thought the fallout-shelter craze was later, around the time of one or 
another Berlin crisis, when Kennedy was president.  I seem to remember a 
lot of discussion, when I was in high school, about whether you could 
shoot your neighbor who was trying to get into your fallout shelter.

I also remember, when I was a senior in high school (1962-63), they got 
all the senior boys to go down into the crawl-space under the school 
building, so they could get an idea of how many people could be 
accomodated there.  


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