...is not the only one in need of your cooperation.
Remember the deployment of those PAC-3 missile batteries all around the archipelago, and the images purporting to notify the missile- and WMD-slinging powers in the region that the Japan-U.S. alliance was ready with a last line of defense against incoming missiles?
Yeah, those.
Well it turns out that Aviation Week has found a wee bit of a problem that has been preventing the PAC-3 batteries from being certified fully battle ready:
All these years the experts have claimed that the electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones cannot hurt us.
They tell us they have the back up frequencies, but who knows for sure? When Kim Jong-il calls unexpectedly, it just might be:
Death by DoCoMo
Killed by KDDI
Snuffed out by Softbank
Remember the deployment of those PAC-3 missile batteries all around the archipelago, and the images purporting to notify the missile- and WMD-slinging powers in the region that the Japan-U.S. alliance was ready with a last line of defense against incoming missiles?
Yeah, those.Well it turns out that Aviation Week has found a wee bit of a problem that has been preventing the PAC-3 batteries from being certified fully battle ready:
The PAC-3s, which arrived in Japan about a year ago, recently underwent a review and weren't certified fully mission capable. The problem was related to the fact that the frequencies needed for the communication links between fire control units weren't available.
"We have everything we need for wartime [which means a number of classified wartime frequencies], but not for peacetime," Town says. "The problem is current ops. Our system is basically an American-European-centric one. Japanese [commercial] cell phones are on . . . the same frequencies as our [Patriot] radios. In the U.S. they don't interfere. Here they do, and that's a big problem."
The solution is to find new radios, new frequency bands or new global agreements with the Japanese to de-conflict the airwaves. But the Japanese government has been moving slowly because the demand for commercial frequencies is so huge in this region of booming economies.
All these years the experts have claimed that the electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones cannot hurt us.
They tell us they have the back up frequencies, but who knows for sure? When Kim Jong-il calls unexpectedly, it just might be:
Death by DoCoMo
Killed by KDDI
Snuffed out by Softbank
Amazing that they could have overlooked such a basic requirement.
ReplyDeleteSNAFU to be sure.
Could you add the link to the Aviationweek article?
Here is the title of the September 3, 2007 article sent to me:
ReplyDelete"Shifts in Strategy: Japan's barriers to strike aircraft and new, advanced missiles are taking shape"
Here is the title of what I believe to be the same article from the Aviation Week homepage.
"Japan's Air Defense Barriers Take Shape"
The article is by David Fulghum.
Makes me wonder yet again why Japan can't get on board with the rest of the world and work with the ITU to normalize this and a 100 other things.
ReplyDeleteWell, some few years ago, when the French Defense Industry sold some very, very modern tanks to Saudi Arabia, they forgot to install the air conditioning on them.
ReplyDeleteHélas, the Arabian weather is not like in Normandy, or say, Côte d'Azur. The military ovens were just impossible to use and the French had to pay the bill for a new configuration.
Shit happens, vous savez.