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For all you hams who are boaters...

"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...

I'll be on 7.030 MHz (cw) for the next half hour testing the new
Outbacker HF mobile antenna. I'm in high speed mode once again - only
took about a hour practice to get the copy speed up to 40 WPM.

I plan on using this on my boat this coming summer so I can have HF
capability for contesting - rare grid squares don't 'cha know.

I missed it. Woulda tried picking it up on the Grundig, but was busy
debugging this computer. (successfully, it appears).

YAY!!! Worked a few Europeans and a new Russian prefix that caught me
by surprise. Japanese operators long path which surprised me -
normally 40 is a problem at this latitude at that time of night - it's
just 20 meters where they hang out.

I was very pleased with myself when the code speed came up to snuff.
I'm still 10 wpm short of 100% copy at 55 wpm which is my comfort zone
in sending - it will take a little time to get it back.

It should be fun operating off the boat this summer. The last time I
went Maritime Mobile in a UHF contest, I had pileups wanting both my
prefix and grid square.

And I need to concentrate on what the new boat is going to be. I'd
prefer to operate from a cabin rather than an open center console. :)

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.

Eisboch

For all you hams who are boaters...

"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...

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.

Eisboch

For all you hams who are boaters...

"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...

On Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:34:46 -0400, "Eisboch" wrote:

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. :)

One of my Navy sea tales:

During one of our patrols in the Med on a DE a radioman inadvertently
shredded the key codes for the crypto gear during a mid-watch. He didn't
fess up right away and therefore all codes had to be considered compromised.
(He finally admitted his guilt)

Meanwhile, they couldn't use the secure HF TTY, so they rousted the old
seasoned Radioman Chief out of his rack and he had to set up and send
encrypted CW for about 4 hours. It took him at least an hour just to raise
somebody. I was dragged out of my rack because nobody could figure out how
to set the transmitter up for CW. (I figured it out, but it was the first
and last time I ever had to do that).

The CO was not a happy camper.

Definitely dates me though. I don't think they even use HF anymore.

Eisboch

For all you hams who are boaters...

On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 00:38:41 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

And I need to concentrate on what the new boat is going to be. I'd
prefer to operate from a cabin rather than an open center console. :)

Something like a Grand Banks 49 trawler perhaps ?

You could run 3 rigs at the same time with air conditioning and the
20kw genset wouldn't even be breathing hard. :-)

For all you hams who are boaters...

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.

I'd recommend replacing it with an Icom 802. The 802 makes a much
better ham rig and it goes back to marine only with the push of a
button.

For all you hams who are boaters...

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

"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
. ..

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.

For all you hams who are boaters...

"Eisboch" wrote in
:

Meanwhile, they couldn't use the secure HF TTY, so they rousted the
old seasoned Radioman Chief out of his rack and he had to set up and
send encrypted CW for about 4 hours. It took him at least an hour just
to raise somebody. I was dragged out of my rack because nobody could
figure out how to set the transmitter up for CW. (I figured it out,
but it was the first and last time I ever had to do that).

USS Everglades (AD-24). Radio Two had two TBK, One TBL, 4 TCS, two AM
plate modulators for the TBKs, all running off racks of motor-generator
sets in the back compartment from old Ship's 110VDC power off the DC
steam generator that powered the winches and booms.

If I keyed both TBKs at full power, I could load the M-G sets enough to
actually drop our head pressure...(c;

You boys need CW or AM to shore on MF or HF, just let me know what freq.
After she's tuned up, it's best to keep your bare hands away from the
shrouds on the mast. Don't wanna see anybody get burned....(c; On some
freqs, they'd turn the air blue around the longwires at night in the wet.

Rock and Roll radio in Charleston was WTMA on 1250 Khz. My fav test freq
used to be 1253, which made a nice hi-pitched note on any radios on deck.

Antennas were long wires between the king post crossarms with a vertical
component down to big brown ceramic feedthroughs into Radio Two, aft
superstructure. Inside the transmitter shack, RF ran in a box trunk on
3/4" copper tubing, unbalanced to the antenna tuner atop the TBx
transmitters. On 4 Mhz, I could easily pin the antenna current meters
and had great reports from hams and Charleston Test Control on 2150 Khz,
even from half way to the Med.

Many times the old girls with the bright filaments had good signals
ashore when the new Collins AN/URC-32s sending 500W to their 35' whips
could barely be heard ashore or afloat. We had one FSK unit, I don't
remember the model, that would give one of the 3 big transmitters FSK
capability, fed by the crypto machines in Radio Central, KWR-7 and 37s.

BM deck techs were terrified of them after one BMSN took the grounding
strap off a turnbuckle to clog it with paint and got his hands burned.
They'd always call me, after that, to coordinate when they would be
properly secured with a working aloft chit.

After the transmitters were trashed by our pencil pusher RM teletype
operators, causing these old manually tuned transmitters grief, I made a
deal with the comm officer. I took over Radio 2 and had the ONLY key.
If he needed a freq I wasn't already up on during the night, they got me
out of my rack to retune in minutes.....instead of having to rebuild the
amps and clean out the melted tube parts for hours when his geniuses
changed freq and tuned some stage on the wrong multiplier setting....
(sigh)

Thanks for the memories.
Butler ET1 - (call us Glitter Delta)

For all you hams who are boaters...

"Larry" wrote in message
...

"Eisboch" wrote in
:

Meanwhile, they couldn't use the secure HF TTY, so they rousted the
old seasoned Radioman Chief out of his rack and he had to set up and
send encrypted CW for about 4 hours. It took him at least an hour just
to raise somebody. I was dragged out of my rack because nobody could
figure out how to set the transmitter up for CW. (I figured it out,
but it was the first and last time I ever had to do that).

USS Everglades (AD-24). Radio Two had two TBK, One TBL, 4 TCS, two AM
plate modulators for the TBKs, all running off racks of motor-generator
sets in the back compartment from old Ship's 110VDC power off the DC
steam generator that powered the winches and booms.

Thanks for the memories.
Butler ET1 - (call us Glitter Delta)

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?

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.

Eisboch

For all you hams who are boaters...

On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 10:25:58 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

I'm not an Icom guy and aren't all that familiar with their radios
other than what I hear.

I know they make a version of that radio for marine use - maybe the
502?

The 802 *is* a marine radio but it is also easy to use it on the ham
bands, closely approximating VFO mode when used that way.