"Larry" wrote in message
...
Herodotus wrote in
:

I
loved signing my original name first name "Panaeyotis" and listening
to them trying to pronounce it. They would try to avoid it by asking
for my room number which I couldn't remember at the time. Then they
would ask for my last name and finally burst out laughing to the
Dining room manager's displeasure when I told them that I only had one
name as when I was born my parents were so poor that they could only
afford to give me one name. In Australia when I am bored I often write
my name in the Greek alphabet. At least people have a sense of humour.
It appears that if you are older with a business suit and can keep a
straight face, people don't mind you "taking the mickey out of them"
the world over.


I lived in Tehran and worked under contract with Pan Am Airlines,
Technical Services Branch, for the Iranian Air Force at Doshen-Tappeh AFB
in NE Tehran. The base is deserted on Google Earth, now, very sad. We
were in the SIGINT/ELINT business against Iraq and Afghanistan. CIA kept
an eye on the Soviets in the late 70's from the "monitoring station on
top of Tochal that did not exist" every Iranian could point out to you.
Shahanshah was our guy, you know...CIA.

While there, I was very intent on learning enough Farsi to astonish the
Iranians and drove my homofars (technical warrant officers IAF) and
especially Raffick, my 12-year-old taxi driver, crazy with questions. He
taught me more Farsi than anyone else, so I spoke more like a street rat
hiphop ho than a proper Farsi speaker, something every Iranian I spoke to
in Farsi found most amusing, except Mullahs...(c; After I learned how to
sign my name, IAF ID number, "engineer" and unit in Farsi, I refused to
sign it in English to anyone. "NO NO! YOU SIGN IN ENGLISH or they think
I signed that form!"....."What? You don't like my Farsi?", I'd retort.
The AF colonel in charge of logistics presented me with my own Farsi
typewriter for my desk he was so proud of me. The conscript soldiers
that guarded the base lived in tents and had a mess tent at the end of
our building. I loved to eat breakfast with them before work if I could
get to work in time. Otherwise, I'd eat lunch with them. They all spoke
street rat Farsi and improved my accent, to the horror of proper
speakers. I was the only American who ate in the army mess tent and if I
needed something that required some muscle outside the secret building
they weren't allowed into where I worked, I had no trouble getting a huge
Russian army truck, my own driver and some grunts. Even Iranian drivers
get the hell out of the way when you're roaring downtown to the Hewlett-
Packard office for parts in a 8-ton truck with 8 drive wheels...(c;

It took some fast talking (in Farsi, of course) to convince my Bank
Markazi branch to allow me to make checks in Farsi with my Farsi
signature, but they relented, finally. The look on a clerks face as this
crazy, obviously American, who was supposed to be ignorant of all local
customs, language, etc., whisk out his checkbook and paid for the
groceries at the Super Shillon all in proper Farsi....(c;

I don't dare try it now in the states as I might find myself in chains
headed for Guantanamo Prison....(c;

I'd go back to Iran any time they decided they'd had enough of the
stonings and beatings and stone aged government. Iranians don't hate
Americans. Like most of the world, they hate our Illuminati Government
trying to kill them all....and they know the difference.

The Army guys even let me drive a T-72 Russian TANK! Way cool!
THAT makes the Peykan orange taxis get the hell out of my way!
They were even afraid to blow their horns!
Ahh...the sound of a steel track tearing up the pavement in the
morning...(c;


Larry
I was posted to a base in the north of Oz once where a Reserve had never
been before.
The docky coppers gave me a badge - 007.
You had to ask for your badge by number every morning.
Number 7 please? Zero Zero Seven?.
Nope, every day, they wanted to hear "Double-0 Seven please"
Cracked them up for weeks.
Hoges in WA

BTW - can you please repost that story about the fake radar you aimed at the
Russian fleet? I can't google it up and I've told a Pommy mate of mine
(ex-submarine-carried Russian linguist) a bit about it but I don't know
enough electronic stuff to tell him properly
thanks

"Hoges in WA" wrote in
:

BTW - can you please repost that story about the fake radar you aimed
at the Russian fleet? I can't google it up and I've told a Pommy mate
of mine (ex-submarine-carried Russian linguist) a bit about it but I
don't know enough electronic stuff to tell him properly
thanks



Sure. It was great fun playing with RF.

The forward radar mount on our ship had an air search radar on it,
AN/SPS-6 from Korean War era. We really didn't have a use for it as we
had no way of defending ourselves being a floating shipyard, a service
ship, so it was decommissioned but I got them to leave the mount and its
electronics working because I wanted to use it for a big TV antenna for
the Crew's TV antenna system I was installing.

We put two big long Winegard VHF-UHF broadband log periodic TV antennas
up there that were anodized blue. They each had two VHF log periodic
sections that pointed inward to a long UHF log periodic that stuck out
the front towards the station. We stacked two of them on top of the
radar mount about 80' off the water on top of the forward king post. To
keep the cable from winding up around them as the ship turned and the
gyro input kept our antennas pointed to the same compass point, the
reason I wanted to keep the original radar mount active, we built some
slip rings to run the RF through into the base of it. You could leave
them rotating like a real radar, which is what we did for this story.

We weren't any kind of high tech ship, being a destroyer tender. Hell,
our HF transmitters were from WW2! But, for some reason, on the Med
Cruise (my first), this Russian ship kept shadowing us for the longest
time and they were taking pictures of our old 1952 ship! It caused quite
a stir during the Cold War as it was right after the Israelis tried to
sink the USS Liberty (www.ussliberty.org). We traveled alone, too!

I finally noticed, one day, the Russians were intensely interested in our
new "secret weapon" antenna located on the forward king post! THEY WERE
TAKING PICTURES OF MY TV ANTENNA STACK! I pointed this out to my Comm
officer and Captain showing them the long lenses pointed towards the TV
antenna, and asked my captain if I could play some games with them using
the antenna. He loved this idea.

I worked in the Metrology Lab, the electronic calibration lab, on the
main deck, aft. One of the things we did was calibrate peak responding
RF power meters used to measure radar peak power output (after it was
attenuated by a calibrated coupler, not in megawatts). To cal these
meters I had a "power pulser" that had wide bandwidth from 1GHZ to 12 or
14 GHZ in several bands. It's output was about 1KW PEAK power with
variable pulse width, repetition rate, etc. you could vary all over the
place to test the meter's response you were calibrating.

So, I took the power pulser and a section of large coax with several
different frequency bands of waveguide adapters and feed horns (feed
horns couple the RF out of waveguide into the open air, in both
directions, to match the impedance of the air to the impedance of the
waveguide. They will radiate at CONSIDERABLY higher effective radiated
power than their input because they are very directional.

I borrowed a box of powered carbon from the electricians that would
absorb the RF energy when I pointed the feed horn into the carbon,
turning RF into heat. I took all this to a light lock deck hatch we used
to keep from radiating light at sea from the lights inside the ship.
This little compartment was flat black with a plastic black curtain
hanging over the opening so they couldn't see me and my contraptions.

We set the "secret weapon" antenna to slow rotation. I could see where
it was pointing with a mirror attached to the handrail near my hatch.

Every time the antenna pointed towards the Russians, I took the feedhorn
out of the carbon box and pointed it at them on "some frequency, rep
rate, pulse width, etc.", then put it back in the box. While it was in
the box, I changed frequencies, rep rates, pulse widths, everything, even
feedhorns as I had about 10 seconds between "sweeps". Some sweeps I just
cut it off to "listen mode".

God, every ECM antenna that rotated spun around and pointed at us on that
ship! I kept this up for hours, on and off. Whenever we'd start it
rotating, I'd start radiating towards their ship, from either side of
ours. They'd get closer to receive every pulse.

Then, we simply hand slewed the antenna forward and stopped......our
mission complete.

The Russians stayed about 8 more hours and went away to "analyze" their
findings. I never heard anything about it beyond that point. It was
great fun for a bored crew to play with. I wonder how many satellite
photos of USS Everglades (AD-24) were taken with closeups of our TV
antenna carefully poured over in KGB or military intellegence HQ?...(c;

BTW, the antenna could pick up Charleston's VHF TV stations over 130
miles at sea, distributed to every shop throughout the ship. As "Cable
Operator", I had quite a lot of political power and could get most
anything I wanted from anyone aboard. My captain, especially, couldn't
believe how great his TV looked from 100 miles offshore all up and down
the coast. I'd go up about once a day and "correct" the small angle
change our breakneck 17 knots cruising speed caused if we were heading up
the coast at the hand controls of the radar mount in CIC. But, with gyro
azimuth correction, if the ship took a turn for some reason, the antennas
stayed pointed at the TV stations very nicely.....

The Russians loved it.....(c;

"Larry" wrote in message
...
"Hoges in WA" wrote in
:

BTW - can you please repost that story about the fake radar you aimed
at the Russian fleet? I can't google it up and I've told a Pommy mate
of mine (ex-submarine-carried Russian linguist) a bit about it but I
don't know enough electronic stuff to tell him properly
thanks



Sure. It was great fun playing with RF.

snipped

Thanks Larry
He'll love it. I couldn't do it justice.

BTW, he tells me the story of an audio tape review they did from a transit
in an Upholder. Boring boring boring, listening listening listening to old
tapes from three weeks before. Until, quite distinctly and verified by
everyone who listened to it, they got a Typhoon passing a couple of hundred
yards behind them. Neither the Russians nor them had any idea they were
that close to each other. They were kicking themselves because they should
have picked up a Typhoon that close.

Hoges in WA

"Hoges in WA" wrote in
:

BTW, he tells me the story of an audio tape review they did from a
transit in an Upholder. Boring boring boring, listening listening
listening to old tapes from three weeks before. Until, quite
distinctly and verified by everyone who listened to it, they got a
Typhoon passing a couple of hundred yards behind them. Neither the
Russians nor them had any idea they were that close to each other.
They were kicking themselves because they should have picked up a
Typhoon that close.



Navy used to have a real monster of an air search radar. I think it was
designated AN/SPS-30, a height finder that had this huge round antenna
with a feed horn arm protruding way out one side. The antenna could be
pointed about anywhere with megawatts of real power.

In the Med, the guys on a cruiser had a Russian playing dangerous games
cutting across their course and getting closer and closer, why I'm not
sure. Anyways, the cure seemed to be to point this monster "Death Ray"
at the bridge of it, causing flourescent tubes to explode and things to
arc around port holes.

I didn't see this, but heard it from a first-hand observer. Of course,
with many incidents, it "never happened".....(c;

There was one on top of ET School in Great Lakes and they could point it
at the "strip" of whorehouses and bars outside the gate, lighting up the
whole place's flourescent and neon signs! That "didn't happen",
either....(c;

On Tue, 13 May 2008 06:54:57 GMT, "Hoges in WA"
wrote:

BTW, he tells me the story of an audio tape review they did from a transit
in an Upholder. Boring boring boring, listening listening listening to old
tapes from three weeks before. Until, quite distinctly and verified by
everyone who listened to it, they got a Typhoon passing a couple of hundred
yards behind them. Neither the Russians nor them had any idea they were
that close to each other. They were kicking themselves because they should
have picked up a Typhoon that close.

Good luck nobody got T-boned.

The Kriegsmarine lost a couple of subs to underwater collisions, one
during training in the Baltic, and one during a convoy battle. The
keel of a U-boat will slice open another sub as they go over the top.
One sinks, the other suffers only light damage.

Casady