No Camera Phones Allowed
Last Thursday night I had the opportunity to stay with a friend of mine from school, David Phillips, who graduated last semester. He works for Rockwell Collins, “a world-class provider of aviation electronic and communication solutions.” Just about everything that flies in the skies has some device built by them. David works in the government projects division, hence the title of this blog. I really did have to leave my camera cell phone with the security officer. At Rockwell Collins they design and manufacture GPS devices for the military as well as radio and satallite communication devices. David is currently working on a project called JTRS. It is a radio system designed to be modular, so that it can be reconfigured for any number of situations, allowing one box to talk air-air, air-ground, air-satellite, etc. on any number of frequencies. Don’t worry, this is all on their website, I’m not divulging national defense secrets. There are numerous labs that have pretty high security before you can get in. When they bring visitors in you have to sign in and out, and they push a red button, which activates a red rotating beacon light to warn the workers of a visitor in the room. It really was a fascinating tour, and very educational for me.