Your March 16 issue described a visit by Rear Adm. Scott Gray to Port Townsend’s Northwest Maritime Center (“Rear admiral discusses Growlers, community relations,” PDN).
The commander of the Northwest region either is poorly informed or is trying to mislead the public.
Unbelievably, he compared the emitters used for electronic warfare training to walkie-talkies.
According to the September 2014 Environmental Assessment for the Pacific Northwest EW Range, page 3.2-26, the transmitters operate with a peak power of 100kW — that’s 100,000 watts.
A commercial walkie-talkie is limited by the FCC to just a few watts.
That’s off by a factor of thousands.
He also said that the Navy has spent a lot of money on technology to quiet the EA-18G Growler.
There hasn’t been any evidence that the Growlers are any quieter, so one has to wonder, where did all that money go?
This again shows the Navy’s utter disregard for either the truth or for the intelligence of the residents of the Northwest, or both.
As a Vietnam-era veteran with additional service in the Navy Reserve, I’m saddened that the relationship the Navy has with the community has degraded to the point where we suspect an ulterior motive in anything a military commander tells the public.
Larry Morrell,
Port Townsend