A story. During Linebacker II, we TDY'd from Kadena to Tahkli RTAFB. Worked F/L and Pod Shop, Vaarks from Nellis came in but their guys never worked on ALQ-87s so one of our guys started teaching basic alignment/maintenance. Bill grabs me to look at a pod for no output signal on the spectrum analyzer. Yep, no signal. Looked at current draw, modulator, power tube drive all good, no signal. Clicked thru the bands on the spectrum analyzer and found the signal waaaay down in freq, ahh. Bill, gimme a hammer. Tapped the pod near the suspect power tube, bingo got signal. This had the Nellis crowd in stitches. So it was a bad power tube (BWO). Bill is a very talented tech, knew how to use the test / support equipment. He did everything right, but until you experience those rare instances it will drive you nuts. I did explain to Bill what caused the malfunction. Kinda miss Bill, he was the best straight guy for practical jokes.
We Jam the SAM,
super out