wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil (Will Martin) (10/20/89)
Glad you posted that note that mentioned your wife's query about the blimp not moving South. I asked the same thing at the time (to the wall and to my wife; unfortunately I could think of no way to ask anyone who really could do anything about it) -- it was an obvious way to get info out of the more-severely-affected regions and there were plenty of other sources of aerial coverage of the SF area. I did notice that the blimp was by far the best camera platform, giving the most stable images. Perhaps ABC felt that having those better pictures of the SF area was a "competitive advantage" in its coverage and did't want to lose them, trading them off for unknown results that the blimp might get further South. Also, I don't know the blimp's ground speed -- it might have been that it couldn't get far enough before dark to provide any viewable images. One aspect of the total earthquake coverage has been bothering me -- the reports had mentioned "silicon valley" in passing, but gave it no real attention. I thought that each of those semiconductor fabrication plants and other electronic industries in that area had underground tanks of various toxic or lethal chemicals used in the manufacture and cleaning of their products. I had thought that a lot of the waste or used chemicals had to be stored on-site because of difficulties in their disposal, also. (There were legal restraints on trucking them out, or limited numbers of firms who provided toxic-waste disposal services.) So there would be large amounts of both fresh, unused, but still dangerous chemicals, and also toxic waste, sitting in tanks all over that area. If the earthquake ruptured even a relatively small percentage of those tanks, the pollution would be severe. It would contaminate the ground water and be like Love Canal spread out over the whole silicon valley area. Does anyone know if these fears are justified, or am I imagining nonexistent dangers? Regards, Will Martin
jgd@gatech.edu (John G. De Armond) (10/21/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0462m08@vector.dallas.tx.us> wmartin@stl-06sima.army. mil (Will Martin) writes: >Glad you posted that note that mentioned your wife's query about the >blimp not moving South. >I did notice that the blimp was by far the best camera platform, >giving the most stable images. Perhaps ABC felt that having those >better pictures of the SF area was a "competitive advantage" in its >coverage and did't want to lose them, trading them off for unknown >results that the blimp might get further South. Before we attribute too much malice to ABC, we should note the technical reason the blimp stayed in the SF area. The blimp, which is strictly a camera platform in these circumstances, must stay within short-haul microwave range of the ground station that services it. In this case, the ground station was at the stadium. Remember, the blimp does not normally carry recording equipment or long distance microwave gear. There is a defined limit on weight and power consumption. John De Armond, WD4OQC | Manual? ... What manual ?!? Radiation Systems, Inc. Atlanta, GA | This is Unix, My son, You gatech!stiatl!rsiatl!jgd **I am the NRA** | just GOTTA Know!!!