The RAM - Vol 53. Page 19

Vol 55

Page 19

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Your Say!

While the Association does not necessary agree or disagree with everything on this page,

we do respect the right of everyone to have their say.

Ron Tyler.

Ted Washbrook writes, “Hello at RAMS, I was saddened to hear that Ron Tyler isn't travelling too well. I was fortunate enough to meet Ron in about 1978-79 when he was BRADO in Darwin. A really good bloke and it would be hard to get a different opinion from anybody who met Him. As a stroke sufferer please pass on my best wishes to Ron and advise him that the first 20 years are the hardest.

Thanks for a great magazine, I look forward to receiving it. Best Wishes, Ted Washbrook”

AN/FPS-36

Tony Semler got in touch, he says: “Reference the article by Brian Abraham on the AN/FPS-36 Quadradar. As far as I can recall the search antenna was keyed to follow whatever direction the Height Finding antenna was pointing. It had a clutch arrangement that somehow (white man's magic) aligned the two antennae precisely in the same direction when activated. The search antenna rotation time was less than ten seconds (too many sleeps to remember the timing) so this would have been the maximum activation time between "Search" and "Precision".

An interesting note. We techs would get a little bit peeved if the Air Traffic Os operating the system would consistently activate the "Precision" mode when the search antenna was a long way off alignment with the height finder antenna. As soon as activation occurred, the clutch would try to engage both antennae, but would have to wait until the next time the key slot came around - which could be up to 355 degrees. It caused excessive wear to the clutch assembly. Not an easy part to replace”.

LED Motion Sensor toilet light.

Ian Mckay wants to know, “Is this what you call a ‘flash in the pan’???”

Bernard Gaynor.

“In the Navy!”

You will, no doubt, be extremely pleased to know that the Chief of the Royal Australian Navy, Vice Admiral Tim Barrett AO CSC, recently fasted in solidarity with Australian Catholics for Ash Wednesday.

Actually, scrap that.

The good Admiral did no such thing. At least, I can’t find any reference in any Navy publication stating that he did. For what it’s worth, I can’t find any Catholic organisations calling on him to do any such thing either. And I would hate to defame the good Admiral by giving the impression that he has gone out of his way to show solidarity with Catholics. He hasn’t. Instead, Vice Admiral Barrett is content to let his sailors participate in an event that the Australian Defence Force acknowledges vilifies Christianity.

On the other hand, Vice Admiral Barrett has gone out of his way to show solidarity with Islam.

That’s right: Islam.

Islam is the only religion that Vice Admiral Tim Barrett publicly participates in, according to Navy publications. He did so this year when he fasted in solidarity with ‘Muslim-Australians’, as he calls them, and rocked up to the Australian War Memorial to praise this ideology. The Royal Australian Navy held a dinner to celebrate the end of Ramadan for the first time in 2015. It was held in the Anzac Hall at the Australian War Memorial. I’m sure no offence was meant. After all, the Anzacs were fighting the Islamic caliphate.

This is how Vice Admiral Barrett describes his participation in Islam:

“I am delighted to be able to host this Inaugural Navy coordinated Iftar. I have fasted today in solidarity with you all, to properly immerse myself in the experience and purpose of Ramadan and to gain an appreciation of the challenges and rewards Muslims experience during this important month in the Islamic calendar”.

Vice Admiral Barrett then went on to state:

“Muslim-Australians and the knowledge and the values they bring to the workforce are a key and essential component of a successful Team Navy.”

If Muslim-Australians are essential to Team Navy then we have a serious problem. Unfortunately for Team Navy, the vast majority of Muslim-Australians who are interested in the military have already shipped off to Syria to fight with the Islamic State. So maybe, on second thoughts, Muslim-Australians are not so essential for our maritime capability. And what’s so wrong with saying that? After all, the Department of Defence released a report last year pretty much saying the same thing. Except it was focused on Anglo-Australian males. It stated they were undesirable.

Regardless, it seems the Army agrees with the Chief of Navy’s sentiment about Islam. So much so that senior officers now think that it’s policy to allow soldiers to participate in events that denigrate Christianity, but not Islam, as shown by this excerpt from an Australian Defence Force report written in mid-2013.

If a uniformed member were to support a gathering that insulted strongly held beliefs of a religion other than Christianity (to use his example, vilifying Islam with “Mohammed is Gay” signs v’s Jesus is Gay” signs in the Mardi Gras) that member will be severely dealt with. In the case of the Mardi Gras, the opposite occurred.

That all sounds very diverse. And this is the kind of diversity that is here to stay.

In fact, Vice Admiral Barrett announced from the Australian War Memorial that the Navy is intent on representing the full diversity of the Australian demographic by 2030. Not only is this a stupid thing to say (will the Navy soon have children, the blind and the elderly?) but it’s also dangerous. After all, the fastest growing demographic in Australia is the growing number of Muslims who have signed up to support the Islamic State. Will they get a gig too?

Yes is probably the answer.

We know this because, by sheer dumb luck and good fortune, Australia is not so far down the path of lunacy as the UK. And in the UK the military has already resigned itself to the fact that it will be infiltrated by Islamic State supporters. You can bet your bottom dollar that Australia’s military will face similar threats as well, especially given that the Chief of Navy is prepared to say things like this:

“…I, and my successors as Chief of Navy, will continue to need guidance to ensure that what should be done by Navy to meet the legitimate religious needs of those members of the Islamic faith is done. Henceforth Navy will always need advice on how to be an inclusive recruiter and employer of choice for those Australians who profess Islam.”

The Chief of Navy might do well to remember that the Army has already been embarrassed by Islam. Australia’s first suicide bomber was an AWOL Muslim soldier and he did us all a favour early last year when he went out with a bang in Syria.

There are a couple of other clangers worth noting from Vice Admiral Barrett’s speech and this whole she-bang promoting Islam at the Australian War Memorial. He claims the Australian Defence Force’s Guide to Religion and Belief contains a great deal of information. That’s more than a little off the mark. It has two glossy pages about Islam. That’s all. And while it does say that Muslims strive to follow Mohammed’s example, his example has been left out. All of it. There’s no mention of the fact that he raised an army. Or the fact that he was a warlord. Or a murderer. Or that he was comfortable beheading entire Jewish tribes before retiring to enjoy himself with the sexual concubines he captured.

None of this is in the guide that Vice Admiral Barrett speaks so glowingly about at a dinner in which he praises Islam. That’s probably why he turned up: he simply has no idea what he is doing. That would be excusable if he was just a sailor. But he’s not. Barrett is commanding the Royal Australian Navy at a time we are at war with the Islamic State. No wonder victory seems so far away. Fortunately, Vice Admiral Barrett was there to hear the Grand Mufti speak from the hallowed halls of the Australian War Memorial. He told us all that Muslims donate money at the end of Ramadan and that this goes all over the world.

Isn’t that nice to know.

If I was the Chief of Navy I’d be a little peeved about this. After all, the Grand Mufti of Australia breezily announced the flow of Islamic funds out of Australia at a dinner he organised in Islam’s honour at the Australian War Memorial.

But now that the Grand Mufti’s let this little cat out of the bag, he might like to explain exactly where this money goes. After all, Islamic charities in Australia are funded by halal certification paid for by you and me. And it would be really embarrassing if this was used to raise funds that end up in the hands of the Islamic State.

Actually, it would be really embarrassing if these funds ended up at the local Parramatta mosque as well, but that’s a whole different story.

Captain Mona Shindy addresses the inaugural Iftar Dinner at the Australian War Memorial.

And yes, she is wearing the uniform of the Royal Australian Navy.

Finally, it’s worth noting that since the Islamic State kicked off its little campaign of world conquest, the Royal Australian Navy has released Islamic uniforms and now commemorative coins that have Navy values on one side and the words, ‘Ramadan Mubarak’ on the other. In addition, the Chief of Navy is fasting in solidarity with Muslims and attending Islamic feasts at the Australian War Memorial.

Somehow, I get the impression that it doesn’t matter what our military does in Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State has already won the cultural war.

A 25-year-old Jewish girl tells her mum that she has missed her period for 2 months. Very worried, the mother goes to the local pharmacy and buys a pregnancy test kit. The test confirms that her daughter is pregnant. Shouting and crying, the mother says, "Who was the selfish bastard that did this to you? I demand to know!" Without answering, the girl picks up the phone and makes a call. Half an hour later, a Bentley stops in front of their house. A middle-aged and very distinguished man steps out of the car and enters the house. He sits in the lounge with the father and mother, and tells them, "Your daughter has informed me of the problem. I can't marry her because of my personal family situation but I'll take charge. I will pay all costs and provide for your daughter for the rest of her life." He continues, "Additionally, if a girl is born I will bequeath two retail furniture stores, a deli, a chateau in France and a $1m bank account." He continues, "If a boy is born my legacy will be a chain of jewellery stores and a $25m bank account." "However, if there is a miscarriage I'm not sure what to do. What would you suggest?" All silent at this point, the mother placed a hand firmly on the man's shoulder and told him, "You'll try again."

Jobs?

Greg Moore writes: “When I was going through the sausage factory in Laverton, it seemed that the future for careers was in electronics. Microprocessors and programming was new, Ellistronics and Dick Smith in Melbourne CBD were thriving with activity and customers were buying parts, books and magazines. That was in 1980, I was on 133RTC.

Going forward a few years, TAFE had a very big demand from students for electronics at trade level and engineering. In the 1980's the Police used Motorola Mocom and Syntrex, in vehicles, each having discrete components and providing work for electronics techs. The Mocoms used a varactor tripler in their output stage, drawing around 15A from the vehicles battery system on transmit. Everything was serviceable and techs were in high demand. Come the 1990's the PC was common, the internet was born and digital signal processing was fast replacing analogue systems.

Well...by 1993 Radschool was history but TAFE enrolments continued to rise because of colour television and VCR's. The internet, analogous to Skynet from the Terminator trilogy, eventually replaced even the DVD and Blu Ray and PVR's. Box TV's are long gone and LED technology replaced backlights in panels. Everything has surface mount soldering. Radios are synthesised with digital voice encryption and the 3G and 4G telephone network provides for data and voice. Little is now serviceable by the old RadTech.

The 4 Corners documentary on Monday 4th July 'Future Proof' summed this up also, but did show that now, in the Skynet age, S.T.E.M. (science technology engineering and maths) will be needed for 75% of all new growth jobs in the next 10 years. For techs now, domestic work is gone and industrial is where the work is. TAFE NSW is up there and ready for the challenge ahead. www.learn.org.au is my teaching platform which complements in class work. The demand for good techs in the RAAF, Navy, Army is at an all time high now. Who knows, maybe one day, RadSchool will reopen

Regardless of who won the Federal election, the major issue facing Australians is the future of work. There are startling and credible predictions that more than five million Australian jobs will simply disappear in the next 15 years, as a result of technology. That's 40% of the jobs that exist in Australia today.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Answering that question is only going to get harder as many of the jobs our kids will do haven't been invented yet. And if parents believe that steering their kids towards "safe" professions like accountancy will guarantee them a job, they're in for a shock. "Machine learning and artificial intelligence in particular are actually solving jobs that we thought traditionally were very highly qualified jobs, people like lawyers and doctors and accountants and bankers... It's eating out the middle of the job market."

There will be winners and losers in some surprising areas as more and more jobs become automated or operated by intelligent computers. What's happening is the same thing that happened to blue collar work in the seventies, eighties and nineties is going to happen to white collar work...People need to start understanding the impact that it's going to have on them.

It's good news for baristas and personal trainers, but not for real estate agents. And the days of long haul truck drivers may be numbered. I think the first thing on the agenda is really going to be driving autonomously between Sydney and Melbourne on the highway. It's not hard to imagine and indeed the technology exists for dedicating a lane and saying this is going to be for autonomous trucks.

The loss of these jobs will be challenging for the existing workforce as there may simply not be enough jobs to go around. But the greater fear is that we're not preparing our kids for work in this technological age. Schools and universities are churning out students with qualifications for jobs that won't exist, instead of training them for the ones that will be created. We've had incredible education in this country, but there is no-one that genuinely really thinks it's fit for purpose now and into the future... Australia is, right now, not prepared.

We meet the kids giving up their weekends to learn the computer coding skills they say they're not being taught at school. I believe that coding is the next layer of literacy. And explore the schools who believe they're unlocking the future with innovative teaching methods and an emphasis on the so-called STEM skills, maths and science.

Many are arguing that we must act now to change the way we educate our kids or risk them sleep walking into a world they won't be equipped for.

We could start working with 12 year olds today. By the time they've done six years of high school and they're 18, we could genuinely have changed their trajectory if we focussed on some of these education changes that need to happen and set them up and Australia up for a very different future.”

I don’t feel my age! In fact, until midday I don’t feel anything at all.

Then it’s time for my nana nap.

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