For all you hams who are boaters...
 

On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 10:23:25 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

THE HORROR, THE HUMANITY!!!

Maybe you could get the turbo option and install a fighting chair with
some outriggers and tuna tower.

For all you hams who are boaters...
 

"Eisboch" wrote in
:

I've long forgotten the transmitter types we had, but I think they
were similar to the ones you describe. I think the two older were 1kw
versions (exciter and intermediate power amp) of a shore based, 10kw
AN/FRT-39 transmitter .... or something like that. It was a two rack
monster standing about 5-6 feet tall and mounted on rubber feet that
allowed it to sway all over the place. I forget now ... peak the grid
and dip the plate? Or was it the other way around? We also had a
couple of more "modern" automatic tuning transmitters but I can't
remember what they were .... UCC-1?

The FRT's were much later. TB series transmitters were WW2! peak
grid/dip plate, load plate then redip because the load detuned
everything. The antenna coupling capacitor on a TBK was two cast
aluminum round pieces that screwed in and out from each other with round
plates that meshed, but didn't touch of course. St Elmo's fire would
cause them to flashover, some times...(c;

I fixed "a few" UCC-1s in my day....yecch. I also worked on the
transmitter/receivers after the TB/RB series, the SRT/SRA series. I was
involved with some of the best (and most profitable) field changes that
came from benny suggs George Raines, an MIT engineer classmate of mine
who refused a commission, and I generated while in "A" school's
accelerated program. George couldn't open a tech manual without pointing
out some stupid error or better way of designing some circuit. He did
the engineering, then I'd build it in the school's shop to submit in our
detailed report with our benny sug...(c;


Radio one and two? Ha. Our transmitter shop was about 8 feet wide by
14 feet long. Radio Central was one deck above and was about the same
size. Then there was an ancient emergency transmitter installed
somewhere in the stern that nobody paid any attention to. I was one
of the few ET's in the Navy that also had a Mod 28 teletype repair job
code, so I was kept busy. That job code was usually held by the RMs.
I was in from 1968 until 1977 and went through the warrant selection
program. Almost was forced to made it a career by continuing to accept
school opportunities, but thankfully bailed out when I had the chance.

Everglades, a destroyer tender, was quite large. We were just a portable
shipyard. We even had an electric foundery and could make about anything
any machine part could need. Our electric shop had a full motor rewind
shop. Our main ET shop had 12 ETs. I was an ET-1598 cal tech
(metrologist) in Fleet Cal Lab designator EAT for nearly 4 years. Glades
was started at the end of WW2 but abandoned as the war ended and not
completed until 1952 to serve in Korea. She spent Vietnam, when I was
aboard her, in Charleston with Med cruises to service 6th Fleet cans and
to do Yellowstone's work for her in Mayport, FL.

Our TTY shop had two RM1s with all the schools, just aft of my cal lab.
My 28KSR used for press copy in the cal lab, posted every morning on the
mess decks bulletin board, was built from spare parts in that shop. I
had a stolen R-390A, homebrew rtty modem and that TTY machine running
24/7 in the cal lab storeroom so we didn't have to listen to the noise...
(c;

My Navy tour was from '64 to '71. Nothing heroic, I joined the Navy for
ET schools and to avoid being forced to Vietnam to die for nothing by the
War corporations. Glades was a great place we all hid in on the other
side of the planet. In '71, with the war winding down before politicians
were strung from light poles, we were 'encouraged' to leave. One of our
chiefs was refused reenlistment at 18 years service to keep from paying
him a retirement check and medical benefits from being exposed to
chemical warfare in 'Nam. He was forced out and lots of the rest of us,
traumatized by Navy's treatment of him, figured it was best to leave.

I got even and became a contractor....(c;

For all you hams who are boaters...
 

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote in
:

Ah yes - TTY.

My Dad had one of those in his basement when I was still learning
basic radio electronics.

I can remember that thing pounding away when he talked to his buddies
who were still in the service and at sea.



Speaking of RTTY, I was the first legal ASCII station on ham radio in the
4th call district. A bunch of us ol teletypers, one in each call district,
were bound determined to be the first on ASCII and met on 14.110 Mhz in the
"Canadian Phone Band" for the event. 15 seconds before it was legal, we
started frantically calling CQ, all at once, on 110 baud ASCII for 60
seconds, making us number ones for our district. Before that event, hams
were only allowed to use 60 wpm BAUDOT teletype code because the government
bureaucrats wouldn't let us have any system they had no way of monitoring,
still afraid we were sending secret messages to U-boats and the Luftwaffe
offshore.

--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.

For all you hams who are boaters...
 

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote in
:

Speaking of Collins, I have my Dad's S-line and his KWM-2 "mobile"
transceiver which was a civilian version of a Navy aircraft
transceiver.



KWM-2 was a ham rig the military adopted as the KWM-2A, which had a crystal
pack and an extra row of local oscillator crystals you could switch to to
operate out of the ham bands on other 500 Khz bandspreads. I had a
suitcase radio KWM-2A, full crystal pack, Samsonite suitcase made for it,
pull out long steel tape dipole calibrated in Mhz, with portable PM-2 power
supply that plugged neatly into the back of the KWM-2A that came from
Vietnam where they threw away thousands of them to try to help Collins and
later Rockwell get rich. They were great transceivers and very portable
for their day. Just carry it with your own suitcase....(c;



--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.

For all you hams who are boaters...
 

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:

----------------
Disclaimer: This is a boating post and applies to boaters. It is not
intended to provoke, annoy, irritate, bother, aggravate, anger,incite,
inflame, infuriate or create controversy resulting in unacceptable
behavior on the part of other posters nor is it intended to generate
political commentary or off-topic debate.



Take it to Oprah!

For all you hams who are boaters...
 

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote in
:

I swear to you (and this is my memory here, so it's suspect)
it looked exactly like a very early version of the Butternut HF-6
vertical. :)


On my wall over the computer is my RTTY roundup award, a SC record that
still stands, 6th place on the planet in 1994. Station was a Yaesu FT-990,
Drake L-4B linear and Butternut HF-9VX crazy looking vertical mounted in
the center of my metal mobile home ground plane. VE8RCS, the northern most
permanent amateur radio station on the planet, sent me a QSL saying that
Butternut was the loudest 20M RTTY station he could hear over the din of
the Japanese stations. Metal ground planes make a Butternut just hum!

WA4USN, the club station aboard the Aircraft Carrier Yorktown (CV-10) in
Charleston Harbor, uses a Butternut HF-6V bolted to the handrail of the
"World's Largest Ground Plane". Man, that thing radiates like mad!...(c;

--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.

For all you hams who are boaters...
 

"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 10:23:25 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

THE HORROR, THE HUMANITY!!!

Maybe you could get the turbo option and install a fighting chair with
some outriggers and tuna tower.


The guy two boats over from me has the GB 52' Europa. Twin Cat 3208s - non
turbo.
It's a 10 kt boat.

Eisboch

For all you hams who are boaters...
 

"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 03:59:26 GMT, "Calif Bill"
wrote:


"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
. ..
On Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:34:46 -0400, "Eisboch" wrote:


"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
m...

On Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:01:14 -0400, "Eisboch" wrote:



Mrs.E.'s GB has an Icom IC700 or 710 (can't remember which one) that
has
the
marine freqs plus all the HF ham freqs. Next summer I'll set up the
antenna
again (taken down during the boat refurbishment) and see if I can
figure
it
out.

Wayne has a IC700 I think. Nice radio.

Hey, listen around enough you might even get the bug - who knows. :)

Listen? :-)

I learned code back in the Navy. It wasn't used much anymore, but we
still
had to learn it. To pass the course we had to do 20 wpm minimum with no
more than 1 or two mistakes IIRC. I passed with 35 wpm.
Right now I doubt I could do the alphabet in 10 minutes and would still
need
a book.

It's funny - I learned as a kid and I don't think there was ever a
time that I couldn't keep up at 20 wpm. My mother was a USCG radio
operator during WWII and up until the day she kind of faded away, she
could copy solid at 30 wpm - it's was pretty amazing.

A lot of people don't know this, but learning the code, you've passed
the test. When you learn the code, it's actually at 5 wpm, a little
closer to 7 wpm actually.

Funny thing about code. When the USCG finally put code to bed and out
of service, they had this big ceremony out where the old Marconi
station was on the Cape - whole big last transmission - Auld Lang Syne
- never more to be used - I have a copy of the last transmission and
a certificate from the USCG about the last transmission (you had to
copy it and send in the transcript) - big deal - historical, blah,
blah, blah. Ten minutes later, USCG signed off with SK and that was
that.

In theory.

Half hour later, SOS from a freighter off the coast of Alaska and
rescue operations coordinated.

In Morse. :)

The ground nav aids for aircraft sent their ID in morse, and the pilots
were
expected to copy 5 wpm. We sent at, I think, 3 wpm. I just looked at the
tabs in the equipment to see if we sent the proper codes. This was for
TACAN, LORAN, ILS systems. This was 1965 and I expect they still use
morse
to ID.

I don't know if this is still necessary, but it used to be that AM
radio stations used to use CW under their signals for ID purposes. It
was also a requirement for radio location for AM anyway.

I know when I was a kid, we used to use a small AM radio to radio
locate WESX in Salem, one in Beverly (which doesn't exist anymore) and
WBZ in Boston. You could get a pretty solid fix on your position
doing that. You would fix north, then compare the signal bearing from
WESX, Beverly and WBZ. Head for the station. :)

Eventually, my Dad purchased one of those Zenith portable radios with
the swing antenna with a compass rose - you'd fix North, then sweep
for a bearing on the AM signal. That thing would put you in a box 100
yards by 100 yards.

Ah - those were the days. Navigating by the seat of your pants.

Nothing like it.

----------------
Disclaimer: This is a boating post and applies to boaters. It is not
intended to provoke, annoy, irritate, bother, aggravate, anger,incite,
inflame, infuriate or create controversy resulting in unacceptable
behavior on the part of other posters nor is it intended to generate
political commentary or off-topic debate.

We used a portable radio with the bar antenna on it, that we rotated the
radio to get the best signals from different San Francisco and Oakland radio
stations to find the Golden Gate Bridge entrance to SF Bay. We never failed
to return home, so was a valid system.

For all you hams who are boaters...
 

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote in
:

LOL!!!

I have German relatives who were hams before the war - had their
radios confiscated for much the same reason.

Like a German Uboat would ever show up in Lake Michigan. :)


All ham radio licenses were cancelled for the duration of the war. As a
matter of fact, most Americans don't know that you had to have your big
Zenith or RCA console MODIFIED by a radio technician, by force of law, so
you didn't listen to Lord Haw Haw or any of the other German shortwave
transmissions. This applied to Canadians, too, as I have some receipt
pictures on a disk somewhere showing the work had been done. There are
pictures of these receipts and notes inside old radios posted,
occasionally, to alt.binaries.pictures.radio newsgroup. The shortwave
bands had to be disconnected by a technician just to keep the American
public in the dark, isolated from the war.

For all you hams who are boaters...
 

On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 18:26:47 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

How do you guys stand it?

My boat doesn't even plane at 10 knots.

Slow and steady wins the race, and a good autopilot relieves the
tedium factor. I enjoy running on a fast plane for an hour or two but
after that I'm ready to relax a bit. Out in the ocean on a nice day,
no traffic and running on autopilot, it really doesn't get much
better: Plenty of time to navigate, check the weather, take in the
sights, grab a snack, etc., and no issues with taking a wave wrong or
smacking a log at 25 to 30 kts.

I can't tell you how many times I've had faster boats flying by me,
only to see them tied up at the next fuel dock as we go by.

We get to pick when and where we refuel. Only one stop required
between SWFL and CT, carefuly selected for best price.