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Larry

Bruce in Alaska wrote in news:bruceg-
:

Bruce in alaska worked on to may converted WWII 110DC ships......
in my younger years.....

USS Everglades (AD-24) circa 1952 had 110VDC motor-generators in Radio II
on the TBK and TBL WW2-vintage LF/MF/HF transmitters. The DC genny was a
separate steam turbine-driven big old generator in the main engine room
running off the same steam as the main turbines. Our deck gear was all
DC motor powered, even the cranes. The control panel was a huge black
Bakelite panel with knife switches and huge fuse holders, all exposed to
anyone leaning over the wooden bar that was chest high to keep you from
falling into it in rough seas. It was like looking into the engine room
of an old 1930 movie.

If I keyed up all 4 TBKs and TBLs at full power, the big motors would
just max out the throttle on the steam generator, slowing the ship with
reduced steam pressure by about 2 knots as she had manual throttle
controls in the engine room. Radio II was 3 decks above the engine room
and I could hear the DC generator whine from the heavy load current
causing magnetic field distortion in the core...

They nearly killed me in Radio II's M-G compartment. I was comparing the
winding resistances in a good HVDC generator (3000VDC) to one that was
sick, trying to figure out what was wrong with it. The switches in Radio
Central were all tagged out properly and the logs signed, as required.
An RM3 ignored my tags and started the good 3000VDC generator my hands
were in. I woke up in Sick Bay, a couple hours later, to the face of a
very worried 4-stripe Navy Captain, my CO. I was still shaking quite a
bit but confirmed to my CO that I had found the problem in the deficient
genset and would have it fixed as soon as I could stand up and go back to
work. That took a couple of weeks as he ordered me off the ship for 2
weeks free leave as soon as the doc cleared it, telling me he didn't want
to see me anywhere near the ship for 2 weeks.

DC power systems on ships were quite neat, indeed. My calibration lab
was powered (at sea) by a GM 6-71 DC genset into a black bakelite control
board that used to power the after 5"-38 gunmount, until they installed
the DASH helo flight deck in its place. 110VDC from our own generator
powered a DC to AC M-G set off its output, providing me with 25KVA of 3-
phase 408VAC to the cal lab's tube-powered voltage stabilizers on each
phase. In the Med, where the TVs use 50Hz instead of 60Hz, I used to
turn down the M-G set's speed to 1500 RPM and increase the field current
to bring back the 408VAC, running the whole lab on 50Hz so our TV picture
wouldn't "modulate" with the 10 Hz difference waves. The Chief
Electrician's words to me were, "If you burn that damned thing up doing
this, YOU are going to be the one rewinding it, not US! (referring to the
Electrical gang)...(c; It ran fine as our load was never over about 6KW,
tops. The Cal Lab had incandescent lighting running directly off the DC
panel, which eliminated a lot of the AC hum in the air inside the lab.
The electricians would screw up main AC power in the ship, putting the
whole ship in the dark....except for that "Beacon In The Night" coming
out of the cal lab's X hatch...(c;

AC power was missing as Everglades approached Charleston in 1968. All
the receivers on the ship were ship AC powered, so we had no comms. ET1
Butler, WB4THE/MM2 at the time, had his ham radio station in the
separately-powered cal lab running...er, ah...1000 watts from his quad of
813 tubes in a homebrew amp Navy supply provided, but didn't know it. My
captain asked me if I could contact Cliff K4OKD, and get us a phone patch
to the base ops at the Navy base. Another ham I found got Cliff on the
phone and Cliff hurried home to provide the patch. At first, confused by
the phone call from a ship at sea, base ops refused to believe it was us.
But, the comm officer ashore recognized us and they sent out the pilot
and tugs to get us to the dock. My ham radio station aboard Everglades
was quite secure, both from running phone patches for my captain to his
wife, and from this one incident where my Heathkit HW-101 transceiver and
homebrew linear was the only comms on the ship!

Larry
--
Democracy is when two wolves and a sheep vote on who's for dinner.
Liberty is when the sheep has his own gun.