It is sad that poor people from many countries would love to be here in
America.

I guess we should try to kick our selves for ever complaining about
anything, being US citizens.

They really built those old Chevy trucks tough.

--
Bill Kiene

Kiene's Fly Shop
Sacramento, CA
www.kiene.com

"Grumman-581" wrote in message
...

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/americ....ap/index.html

I think I would have been tempted to let them continue on towards the US
due
to their creativeness...

You should have seen the side pictures of it. (I saw them in a
newspaper so can't offer them online to you.)


Starboard quarter view and a lot more detail than the previously posted CNN
story...
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/6393595.htm

"Snafu" wrote ...
Starboard quarter view and a lot more detail than the
previously posted CNN story...
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/6393595.htm

Perhaps they should have considered not putting a bright yellow tarp over
the bed of the pickup? Painting the pickup haze gray might have also been
better... Don't know if it would have prevented them from being spotted, but
it surely wouldn't be as noticeable as that bright yellow tarp...

Perhaps they should have considered not putting a bright yellow tarp over
the bed of the pickup? Painting the pickup haze gray might have also been
better... Don't know if it would have prevented them from being spotted, but
it surely wouldn't be as noticeable as that bright yellow tarp...

Those Fat Albert RADAR balloons can't see if it is yellow or grey. The DEA
watches anything bigger than a jetski moving up on the Florida coast 24/7

"Gfretwell" wrote ...
Those Fat Albert RADAR balloons can't see if it is yellow or grey. The DEA
watches anything bigger than a jetski moving up on the Florida coast 24/7

Perhaps, but a small boat (and I'm using that term quite loosely in this
case) could get lost in the ground clutter... Even if they get it on radar,
they still have to find it... Anything that would slow down the aquisition
of the craft would be worth it... If they are lucky, it might slow it down
enough that they could get to land...

Fat Albert uses the finest US "look down, shoot down" RADAR. It is used to spot
small fiberglass sailboats. A pickup truck would glow like a highway flare.
It's probably how they spotted it in the first place.
Once they get the fix the USGC just drives to the GPS coordinate until they
pick it up on the shipboard RADAR. Prior to the new "homeland" money the USCG
stayed up to the state of the art in the Florida straits with DEA money. The
same was true of the air guard and the police agencies. The drug war gobbles up
an appreciable part of a billion a year, a big chunk of it on the Gulf coast.
Everyone with a badge, a boat or an airplane is getting a taste.

"Gfretwell" wrote ...
Fat Albert uses the finest US "look down, shoot down" RADAR.
It is used to spot small fiberglass sailboats. A pickup truck would
glow like a highway flare.

They made it 50 miles... Only had 40 more to go... Anything that would have
slowed down aquisition might have made enough of a difference that they
might have gotten ashore... Even though the Coasties new the general area of
the 'boat', they still had to get a visual on it... The initial visual is
done by aircraft... The yellow tarp really helped in that case... Once the
aircraft has the visual, the Coastie boat intercepts the craft... They don't
send out the boat unless they have a confirmed visual sighting since it
could be a legitimate vessel... I fly along the Gulf periodically and from
1000 ft, a small boat is not very visible unless there is something that
contrasts with the surrounding sea... Hell, I've had cases where I was
directly over the top of a small airport and couldn't even see it even
though both my LORAN and GPS said that I was within 0.1 nm of it...

BTW I wouldn't be surprised if we were watching that truck the whole time and
only took them when it looked like it was going to work.
Nothing slows down trusting ingenuity like deadly failure.
I doubt there are any statistics about how many die 20-30 miles off the coast
of Cuba when these hair brained schemes fail and I doubt the USCG wants to get
in that business.

"Gfretwell" wrote ...
That is absolutely true. I suppose that is why they started using RADAR in
WWII
to spot sub periscopes. (significantly smaller than a truck) RADAR is a
whole
lot better now.

I think that the periscopes might have stuck up higher due to the need to
get above the waves... I was an Electronics Technician (Radar) when I was in
the Navy... On the radars for which I was responsible, there could be a lot
of ground clutter in certain types of conditions... Since that was 20 years
ago, I would suspect that the radar units have gotten someone better since
then... Still it boils down that you have to get visual confirmation on the
target before you send in the surface based assets... If you paint a target
that looks suspicious, you might dispatch surface based assets at the same
time as airborn assets, but of course the airborn assets will probably
aquire the target first... At the very least, they'll get on station
first... Once they acquire the target, they will direct the surface based
assets towards it... The initial radar dispatcher will route the airborn
asset to the general location of the target and then it is pretty much a
visual matter at that point... The airborn asset might have a downward
looking radar to make it easier though...

Doug Kanter wrote:

"Grumman-581" wrote in message
...

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/americ...ants.truck.ap/
index.html

I think I would have been tempted to let them continue on towards the US
due
to their creativeness...


It's funny. The president says we're trying to spread the word about freedom
and democracy, but when the occasional handful want to come here, we send
them back to a regime we've considered evil since its inception.


Nothing "funny" about it. We have a legal process which a potential
immigrant can use to gain entry here. If you try to circumvent that
process, you deserve to get sent back.

Dave