Subject: Re: [Radio Officers, &c] USS Pueblo (was: Military
Vietnam XTAL)
This is interesting.
I was R/O on a small "r/v" in the Fall of 1971 operating in the
Sea of Japan very close to the coast of North Korea but beyond
it's territorial limits. Nevertheless, one misty morning there
appeared U.S.S. "Bainbridge" (nuclear destroyer) between us and
the coast. They shooed us away from the coast with strict
instructions to report our position twice daily to Commsta
"Yokosuka"/NDT from that day on regardless of where we may be
operating! Not only that but I had to report the QTH of another
U.S.-flag r/v operating in the North West Pacific whose
radio-operator (couldn't bear the title Radio Officer as
she didn't even have a minimum 2nd Class ticket!) couldn't send CW
to communicate directly with NDT. So that boat would call us on
the ham bands twice daily for me to QSP their posn to NDT, her
earning at least twice the salary I did because she was sailing on
an American ship and I on a lowly Panamanian bottom!
The strange thing was that even though our flag was Panamanian
with a mixed nationality of technicians in the so-called "lab"
(into which I or any of the crew were never allowed to enter...)
and a Canadian crew (with American relief skipper) supposedly had
U.S. Navy equipment in the lab! Apparently, the purpose of the
ship was to collect "core samples" for Lamont Observatory
(Palisades, NJ) of Columbia U. This seemed so strange to me....and
to most people onboard but we didn't ask questions.
I didn't like the fact that if we were only collecting
bottom core samples why the secrecy around such an "innocent"
operation?! I got off that boat a month later in Hongkong not just
for that but also because there was a near mutiny onboard with one
man falling down the hatch and breaking several bones; the skipper
refused for me to send a MEDICO call on 500kHz to have this
seriously injured man taken off by any ship with medical staff
onboard as we were too far from the coast (we being in the East
China Sea East of Communist China at the time). He said that "the
work must take priority over everything else....." (sic).
To this day I wonder if that U.S. destroyer had not been there that morning we might not have endured the same fate as USS Pueblo!
Paul Du Mesnil
Interesting story Paul!
I have to ask why were the ham bands used? Why not use one of the Part 80 Sideband channels?
The SOP about that crew member should have been to contact a nearby USN asset to render assistance while maintaining the ship on station if it was that important.
It was probably best that you got off the ship when you did, sounds like a real nightmare.
73
Jeremy
Sent from Mail for Windows
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Why the ham bands? I don't know. The ham equip was in the
chartroom and the skipper spoke to that American ship himself as I
refused to handle ham comms: I was there as a Radio Officer, not a
ham operator! Once the skipper got the position of the American
ship he passed it along to me to send to NDT on HF CW. (NDT manned
all the frequencies we agreed to on the initial QSO and they did
it 24/7 so I always was sure of getting hold of them at ANY time
day or night in any of the commercial HF cw bands....they must
have had one or two US Navy oprs just listening to those freqs for
a call from me and they are the ones who told me to call at any
time outside the two daily skeds we had!).
As for me calling anyone for assistance for our injured crewmember, it was out of the question even to tell NDT or any USN asset about the casualty: the skipper gave me strict orders to ask him permission before any transmission on my part. He even checked my radio log regularly. (Didn't mean I had to enter everything in the log, did it?!)
Yes it was a nightmare and the worst of the 25 ships I sailed on.
I did have some dignity left and that's why I left in Hongkong
(without being paid) 8 months short of the 1 year contract. I
simply told them to kiss my a... when they threatened to take
action against me. I quickly found a shipping company in H.K.
(with the help of the Chief Radio inspector in H.K. and the
Merchant Navy Officers' Guild of H.K. to which my own Canadian
union, i.e. Canadian Merchant Service Guild was associated) on a
beautiful cargo-passenger ship where I stayed for 8 months. What a
relief that was. I sailed in the Far East and Middle East for 3
years without coming home. Jobs were plentiful in Hongkong and
since I had a First Class with Radar Endorsement and experience, I
was always paid top scales. On the (full) passenger-ship of the
same company which was on a regular run between
H.K.-Singapore-Penang, as Second R/O I earned even more than the
Chinese Chief R/O but the company told me never to tell the latter
how much I earned! Ha. Ha.
Cheers,
Paul D.
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I'm strictly a commercial R/O. I'm not saying that had there been a distress which comms were being conducted using Ham radio that I would not have partaked! ANY means of communicating is allowed in the case of a distress. I have a better understanding of S.O.L.A.S. than that. All I'm saying is that I monitored the SOLAS distress freqs. as per Int'l Radio Regs, i.e. 500kHz, 2182kHz (then) and even had (if available) a receiver tuned to 8364kHz (CW). On Naval Auxiliary ships I also monitored 121.5mHz and 243.0mHz, distress and calling for commercial/private or military aircraft. Marine chnl 16 (156.8mHz) VHF was normally guarded from the bridge. I never got into Ham radio because I am simply not interested in that hobby. As for sailboat distresses, the last few captains I sailed with on merchant ships had the same view on that: let the nearest Coast Guard rescue them! In today's precision scheduling of container-ships for arrival at the next port-of-call on a specific date, no Master is going to divert his ship to go to the rescue of a lone sailboat who got in trouble often because it is single-manned, out on the high seas where often it should not be in the first place having left at the wrong time of year thus facing very dangerous weather once on the ocean. And that's the opinion of so many in the commercial world with whom I've discussed the subject. Pleasure in their mind does not trump business.
Cheers,
Paul D.
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On May 19, 2022, at 10:20 AM, Paul D. <al...@glinx.com> wrote:
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I know but go tell that to a 20,000-unit container-ship's captain on a fixed schedule... Those ship masters do not view pleasure sailboaters as fellow "mariners". Sorry, but that's their opinion, not mine.
Cheers,
P.D.
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Interesting perspectives to say the least. First, the injured crew. It’s luck it wasn’t a US crew in today’s age. The lawsuit that would have resulted would set that guy up for life. Deliberately and unilaterally withholding a medevac without consulting higher navy or rescue authorities wouldn’t be tolerated these days.
Another oddity in today’s thinking is sending a “secret” ship’s QTH over open channels. You didn’t mention using any sort of cypher. Along the same lines, not sure why anyone was using an amateur radio on a secret mission ship as well. Maybe phone patches or something similar. I am gathering the Master was a ham since he took the lead on it. Still doesn’t explain why the radio operator on the US ship couldn’t use the ship’s commercial sideband radio, and I guess we’ll never know.
Eric is right about the RCC’s. With vessel traffic tracked using LRIT and Sat-C polling, everyone knows where these freighters are and individual ships can be directed to vessels in distress. If an RCC calls on the phone to divert me, I’m going, even if all I can do is drop off some fuel, water, and provisions. I place life well above any schedule; and I don’t care if it’s a ship, fishing boat, or yacht. My only hesitation would be a VHF distress in a known hostile or pirate area. In that case, I suspect a ruse and will think twice about diverting.
I guess things were very much different in the 70’s, but it was 50 years ago now, so to be expected.
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On Jul 19, 2022, at 12:31 AM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. <n1...@arrl.net> wrote:
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