NEW 500 KHZ NETWORK NEW 500KHZ NETWORK UPDATED

[David Ring]

QSP from Olivier, F6DGU.

73

DR

---------- QTC ----------
From: OLIVIER F6DGU <olivier...@wanadoo.fr>
Date: Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 10:38 AM
Subject: NEW 500 KHZ NETWORK NEW 500KHZ NETWORK UPDATED
To: NEW 500 KHZ NETWORK <new-500-k...@googlegroups.com>

Hi radiomen,
I please let you know that the NEW-500KHZ-NETWORK website is updated
on August 2008
http://olivier.marsan.free.fr/N5NTW
Best regards
OLIVIER F6DGU N5NTW COORDINATOR
f6...@free.fr

[David Ring]

OK, Hand and Glenn,

No more QSP's from Olivier if you wish.

Those that have his web site can sign up for that mail, and if he
applies for membership here again, after his last episode, I will ask
the group if he will be permitted to rejoin.

It is fine with me. I try to take a neutral position being a
messenger rather than the message.

However, even communications companies had the right to refuse
messages that were inappropriate.

I will do exactly that. I thank you both for your input.

His further messages to me will NOT be relayed to the group.

I very much appreciate your input as it was very helpful to me.

73

DR

List owner.


On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 5:17 PM, ECHOGOLF <echo...@c2i.net> wrote:
>
> David
>
> I was looking for the right word to comment your QSP from Olivier, but
> luckily Glenn saved me. I would probably have used a less diplomatic
> expression. Please spare us from more of the kind from that source.
>
> Regards
> Hans
>
>
> -----Opprinnelig melding-----
> Fra: radio-o...@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:radio-o...@googlegroups.com] På vegne av Glenn VK4DU
> Sendt: 21. august 2008 22:53
> Til: radio-o...@googlegroups.com
> Emne: [Radio Officers, &c] Re: NEW 500 KHZ NETWORK NEW 500KHZ NETWORK
> UPDATED
>
>
>
> David,
>
> Why are you sending us this rubbish?
>
> You have told us that Oliver is not a member of this list, and yet you
> persist in relaying his deluded fantasies.
>
> Glenn

[David Ring]

My appologies to Hans for typing his name incorrectly. My hand
reached for the wrong key as D and S are right next to each other!

Sorry, Hans.

73

DR

[Mike Zbrozek]

Hello Dave -

I looked up the Olivier web site abt The New 500 Khz network.
This concept is not going to be implemented, its 2008, cw and
the Ship Radio Officer with 500 khz is NOT going to be brought back to life.
Whats the matter with this guy? Time to move on to bigger things
in life. Big money and big shipping companies have won that battle in the early
1990's .....do you hear me now?

73

Mike K8XF

[Kilobravo]

I dont mind Olivers traffic/content etc.... it gives something to read...
but I have yet to understand what they are trying to do?

I have been in this business many years and have yet to see the
communications companies do anything in reverse, it is always full steam
ahead with new ideas, equipment and better ways to do things, sort of, out
with the old and in with the new, which soon became old just when you
started to figure out how it worked.

73

KB

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Ring" <n1...@arrl.net>

[Jeffrey Herman]

What a contrast! Glenn's and Dave's comments below versus the incredible
work being reported on the 600m research group email list.

DR -- do what you think is best for the list -- don't be bullied by
anyone on here.

73, Jeff KH6O

Intelligence Specialist Chief Petty Officer
U.S. Coast Guard Sector Honolulu

On Fri, 22 Aug 2008, Glenn Dunstan wrote:

>
>
> Exactly - the whole concept is fantasy land bullshit!
>
> Why do you persist in wasting the list's time with this rubbish, Dave?
>
> 73
> Glenn

[David Ring]

I have agreed to not post any more of Olivier's email, to ask the
group should he wish to join before accepting him.

I have a policy of not judging email sent to me to be sent on to the
list - no matter how sound or follish it is. This is the reason I
sent it onward. It might be of interest to some.

But I do have rules - no bullying, no putting others down, no amateur
radio related subjects except as it is connected with our history or
present maritime or air stations, except when incidental to a message.

THE SUBJECT IS OF OLIVER'S EMAIL BEING SENT TO THE GROUP AND ANY
SPECULATION OF MY MOTIVES IN PASSING THE MESSAGE IS NOW CLOSED.

If anyone wishes to discuss how foolish, or how good an idea this 500
kHz group of Olivier's is, or isn't, that subject remains open as long
as it remains civil.

Anyone who sends messages about the sending of the message or who is
not civil in their discussions will be put on moderation immediately.

Behave!

73

DR

[Glenn VK4DU]

David,

We have discussed, ad-nauseam, the sheer folly of Oliver's 'network'. It
exists only in his mind. Pointless re-hashing that.

Carry on.

73
Glenn

-----Original Message-----
From: radio-o...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:radio-o...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of David Ring

[K6KSG]

David - I really don't want to see this bog to turn out to be a bitch
session. Everyone has an opinion and like you say, if you disagree or agree
"KEEP IT CIVIL. We are all brothers of the profession, lets keep it
professional.

73
Dick/KAKOS

[K6KSG]

David - I really don't want to see this blog to turn out to be a bitch

session. Everyone has an opinion and like you say, if you disagree or agree
"KEEP IT CIVIL. We are all brothers of the profession, lets keep it
professional.

Sorry for the mis-spelling - error correction hi...

73
Dick/K6KSG

[Mike Zbrozek]

Hello Jeff-

I have a Coast Guard question....why did the USCG put the greenist cw opr
on 500? Since all ships foreign and domestic had to qsx 500 those poor
ops were embarassing...giving the USCG a bad rep.....
I know many US Radio Officers would never send a Amver or Obs to the CG
because the Green Horn could not copy even when you slowed down to 10 wpm.
It didnt take me long to find that out....resulting in sending Amvers and Obs to
commercial US cw stations. And many US RO's didnt even send the amver/obs
on cw...everything went on the Inmarsat..........I would send those long departure
Amvers on Satellite myself, especially if the ships departure was 0300 local.

Whats the story.....

73
Mike K8XF
Sparks 1980-96

[Bryan Fisher]

Mike,

As an ex-USCG RMC, I'll take a stab at this one...

When new RMs arrived at NMC from radioman school, for example, they had to stand watch on various circuits in order to become a fully-qualified watchstander.  As I recall, during my tenure there from 1980-1984, we had:

(1) 500A (500kHz calling frequency watch)
(2) 500B (copy traffic on working freq//back up 500A operator)
(3) Voice (2182kHz)
(4) Air/Ground
(5) HF CW (6/8/16 mhz)
(6)  RTTY ship/shore (unencrypted)
(7)  RTTY ship/shore (encrypted)
(8)  Broadcast / Landline
(9)  Technical Control
(10) Watch supervisor/watch officer

These positions were unofficially considered in increasing order of ability and 'prestige,' pretty much in the order listed, with the poor schmos on 500A wearing their 'cans' at the bottom of the pecking order.  You had to begin breaking in somewhere, and 500A was  the 'starting gate.'   Most of the operators I knew loathed that four-hour stretch on 500A, although I didn't mind it too much; I used to take pride in trying to turn out a clean log (we kept a complete log) with no typos, which mean paying strict attention and copying/sending with your highest ability.  Sadly, this mentality didn't extend to every operator in every section and at times the poorest or least-able operators would end up caught in the loop, standing endless 500kHz watches because they either would not or could not advance to the more technically-complex tasks such as radioteletype or technical control.

I can understand how that might give the impression that every USCG CW operator was a 'lid' but that's not true at all.  I had associates at NMC who were positive speed-burners, real professionals who would handle the 500kHz circuit with skills that matched and sometimes even exceeded our commercial maritime colleagues down the road at KPH and KFS...and I arrogate myself a place among them, but solely because I LOVED working CW, was a competent and able operator (I used to love trading 50WPM blasts with EUEM, UQJQ, and some of the other Soviet hot-shots) and was saddened by its commercial demise.  There was just this stigma attached to 500kHz, though, as the 'break-in point' for new operators, which undoubtedly contributed to the reputation you've described.

If we'd had a larger 'hardcore' knot of competent operators like some of my associates at that time (one of which went to work at KFS, another at KLC, and another for the State Department), we might not have had so much collective egg on our faces.

73

Bryan
RMC USCG
NXFN / NMC / NRUO / NMW43 / NMC / NLVS / NYCQ / NBTM / NRV / NMEL / NHWR

[Glenn Dunstan]

Interesting!

NRV HF CW was always MUCH better than MF.....

________________________________

Mike,

As an ex-USCG RMC, I'll take a stab at this one...

These positions were unofficially considered in increasing order of ability

[Roger Janosek]

Mike,

 

I agree with Bryan's email concerning CG Ops.  I was one of those CG ops and I had little problems copying AMVERS, OBS, or anything else thrown at me by seasoned operators at sea.  Sure it took a few watches to get use to the 500khz position, but you have to remember most of us just got out of 9 months of radio school learning RTTY, Voice, CW, Crypto, and all the technology that went will all of it. After all, you old salts did this for a living.  We did CW on a very part time basis.  We had numerous positions besides CW to man on a typical watch.  However, most of us radioman will say 500khz is one of our favorites.  We had many operators that were seasoned CW operators who could stand up to the fast swing of the Russians.

Roger Janosek/WB5IJJ

RM1 USCG - NMJ/ NMG/ NJPJ  1972 - 1975

[Stan Barr G0CLV]

Roger Janosek wrote:

> We had many
> operators that were seasoned CW operators who could stand up to the fast
> swing of the Russians.

Talking of Russians (or rather Ukrainians) I was listening to USO5
working URWM, the Izmail, on 12MHz yesterday. Fast and clean ops,
but Cyrillic Morse sadly...so I couldn't copy much.

--
Cheers and 73,
Stan Barr G0CLV G-QRP 3369 g0...@dsl.pipex.com

"Never leave well enough alone." - Raymond Loewy

[David Ring]

Roger,

You must have set a radio-officers list record for period expired before answering a message:  Over 90 days!

In my opinion, the hierarchical list given by Bryan it really showed a terrible ineptitude of the USCG brass or just plain ignorance on their part.  Of course, this means that to find the problem, you might have to go up several - or all - of the levels - perhaps to the Commandant himself if need be.

This is the USCG list given by Bryan:

(1) 500A (500kHz calling frequency watch)
(2) 500B (copy traffic on working freq//back up 500A operator)
(3) Voice (2182kHz)
(4) Air/Ground
(5) HF CW (6/8/16 mhz)
(6)  RTTY ship/shore (unencrypted)
(7)  RTTY ship/shore (encrypted)
(8)  Broadcast / Landline
(9)  Technical Control
(10) Watch supervisor/watch officer

The MOST important frequency at a coastal radio station was 500 kHz.  The operator had to be highly skilled to really do an adequate job here.  It was also the most important frequency on a ship, always secondary to handling message traffic, or fleet broadcasts, weather, navigation warnings (except TTT).

As a 500 kHz operator, he had to already have the ability to copy under the noise, to be able to recognize probable call signs from the sound of the signals if he was familiar with that ship, during an SOS or XXX or even a TTT message, he had to notify the correct agency, ship owner, lifeboat station (if this was a coastal incident), Naval Search and Rescue.  To do this he would have already have to be familiar with the landline wire room and been quite familiar with the stations index of shipping companies, ship agents and owners.  He'd also want to give a copy of the SOS or XXX to the vessel's owner, and company.

During the times during which he was copying traffic on working frequencies, he would - of course - have to maintain a split phone watch with one ear on 500 kHz and one ear on the station he was working.  To work traffic he would have to be comfortable at 35 wpm or so.  (35 wpm was the minimum proficiency required by Tropical Radio Telegraph (TRT) stations).  Normal commercial traffic speed of 27 wpm would be a breeze for him.

The United States was the only country in the world where inexperienced, undertrained operators were ever put on 500 kHz. 

I've heard USCG cutters close to the coast and much nearer to USCG commstas than I was calling for hours on 500 kHz with no answer.  The problem was?  Yes, the problem was that the RM on watch could only copy about 10 wpm, and the code sent by him when he finally answered when a ship called that slowly was just barely decipherable.  It was shameful and a national embarrasment for USA..  Many of you are familiar with the distress of the "Marine Electric" / WOOH in 1983.  I believe the USCG in Boston (NMF was in Marshfield, MA where I live) had to call NMN in Virginia to tell him that the vessel off the Virginia coast was putting out an SOS.  This wasn't an example of something that happened rarely, it happened often, the only (and BIG) difference was that this was an SOS.  It could have also been a XXX or TTT.  But usually it was "just" a merchant ship calling with an AMVER or weather OBS.  After a few tries, the merchant - unless he was new to the area, would either send the traffic to the USCG on hf or (much faster and easier) send it to a commercial coast station like WCC, WSC, WKM or other.

Radioteletype on the other hand was much much easier.  The messages didn't have to be copied by hand, and they didn't have to be sent by hand.  In commercial stations, radioteletype was either automated, or attended to by those with a 3rd class marine radio license with a radio operator with a 2nd or 1st class radiotelegraph license as their supervisor.or station manager.

It did take a bit of knowhow in the older days to do crypto and arrange some of the mechanical arrangements of the encryptation system - often you had to be somewhat of a nimble fingered basket weaver to produce the needed interlace of plug in cords to receive todays traffic.  Now this is handled by computer.

Broadcasts and Landline were usually handled by the more inexperienced or less trained operators - unless at night when the manning was small.  Often telex operators (less pay and less qualifications) were hired.  They were very good they often could type at 100 to 120 (or greater) wpm - flawless and error free. 

In my opinion what the USCG should have done to the newly educated RM is that they should have put him in a room and had him listen to a 27 wpm broadcast and not give him anything to do until he could come out with perfect copy.  Then give him five letter traffic encrypted traffic to send.  Give him a thousand groups to send and tell him that he can't eat until he send it and it's verified at the other end.

From talking to ,my friends who were RMC's (Radioman Chief) at various duty stations, this always wasn't the case.  In the 1950s and 60s and perhaps into the early 1970s the pecking order was much closer to what commercial stations used - but in particular the MOST experienced operators were used on 500 kHz.

To get that new RM up to speed costs money and the USCG had a budget which was always being squeezed both from without (funding) and within (USCG budget).  Fuel and Food were most important!  Money to train a new RM was cut to a minimum.

People were graduated from radio school - especially in the 1980s and 1990s that should not have been graduated - at least they should NOT have been certified as Morse operators.

Perhaps this was part of an attempt to discredit 500 kHz by the USCG brass.  I wouldn't have considered this, except for some very anti-500 kHz propaganda that came out from them.

The one that was the most amazing was what the Commanding Officer of USCG Boston told me (I covered the story for the local newspaper, it was picked up by Associated Press) on the closing of 500 kHz watch at all the USCG coast stations:

"The maximum distance of 500 kHz under any conditions is 100 miles, we cover more distance using other modes."

Of course the regular RMs could make no comment about official USCG positions - but when the last message was sent from Boston NMF - a ship called from off the coast of Puerto Rico and acknowledged the broadcast.

It took me a few weeks or maybe a month to understand the twist under which the official statement of 500 kHz could be true.

It finally dawned on me:  The maximun distance that - given all possible conditions - that 500 kHz could communicate would be about 100 miles in a severe overhead lightning storm with salt spray on the ship's antennas, and a similar storm over the receiving station.

Yes, under those conditions, you probably could just communicate about 100 miles - but that's still all ships within about 8 hours steaming from rescuing you - and further away ships did not have the QRN and they could copy you.

Most of the RMs that I talked to after the closedown of 500 kHz were ashamed at how the USCG had to stab 500 kHz in the heart by lying rather than letting it die a natural death.

So was I.

73

DR

R/O David J. Ring, Jr.,
Green Harbor, MA

[G4...@aol.com]

Hi guys

That ITT looks identical to the Royal Navy Key of recent years, perhaps the case is\ a little shorter,

so would suggest very similar in construction and use

73

Tony

G4CLX

[Roger Janosek]

David,

Sorry you had bad experiences with the CG on 500khz.  I went to CG radio school in 1972 and served my country in the 70's on commstas and on ship.  Like I said before, I had no problem copying or receiving merchant vessels operators on 500khz.  And believe me, I copied tons of amvers and OBS not to mention an SOS.  Perhaps your complaint was operators in the 80's.

Roger Janosek  rji...@yahoo.com

[J.J.Miller]

Roger Janosek wrote:

I graduated from CG Radio School in 1952, "Radops # 60", Groton, CT....24 weeks, we had to pass 24 wpm. Assigned to CS NMQ Lbeach, CA, all novices were put on 2670khz, voice & CW, public calling and distress and CG calling. If you proved efficient on that, you were allowed to sit on 500Khz, during the mid watch, under close supervision. We stood split phones, 500/8280, 8280 was the HF calling and distress freq.. Actually you learned a lot on 2670, mostly weekend sailors with breakdowns, fires, etc., you had to copy every word into the log, no pencils were allowed. The local CG units would send CW msgs via 2mhz. My first cw msg ever rcvd was from CGC Minnetonka, I believe NRUP. In school we sat on "Watch" every afternoon, our cans blasted off by nearby WSL. At NMQ  our tape puncher was broken and we sent Wx bcst by hand. The CG Air station in San Diego monitored us and reported on errors made, corrected and uncorrected, it was a very nice feeling to see that tty report, "No errors detected".

                  At sea aboard weather ships we stood the same split watches, 500/8mhz. We were very proud of our expertise as both military and commercial ops, as opposed to the USN guys. Of course we did not have the experience of copying "Fox" messages like they did. (I spent many hours copying USN broadcasts on my own time). Ended up enlistment at NMY.  500khz was great, worked New Zealand from Hawaii.

Went I went to sea in the '90s, the CG stations were very inept as far as handling amvers, usually sent mine via South Africa, Cape Town radio or Norway, anywhere but NMN if I could help it. Of course the Capt. always wanted it sent by Satcom, but CW was more fun. There was a write up about NMN and their top op bragged about handling 120 amvers  a month. NMN would never reply with call signs, often two ships would call at same time, they would tell us up and you wouldn't know with whom they were qsoing. Once I was directed to go up to some out of band freq. on the other hand I did onetime send my amver to NMN from NE coast of Australia. I sent my final cw msg from MV SEA ISLE CITY/WCYQ upon arrival Bahrain to A9M.

                                      From the coast of Pakistan I was able to work NMN on their final day, I was second last ship to QSO before QRT , don't recall date because their certificate does include same.

                73
John J. Miller      W3DHO   USCG '51-'54     Merchant Seaman  '91-'97   (ITT Mackay Marine in between)

[David Ring]

Yes, it was with the newer operators.  Things just got to the point of being terrible.  Many of our finest USCG operators - and I have at least a dozen friends here locally who worked on light ships, at NMF, on cutters.  They were darned excellent operators.  But at the end it was very terrible - it just was a source of national embarassment - and I heard from it from R/Os who I met in the USA when ashore.  I told them that we had some excellent USCG operators - in fact, I said, most of the best operators at the coast stations were either ex USCG or Navy.  500 kHz was our "public face" for the USCG.  The voice comms from USCG were always nice and sharp - but when it went to CW at times it was terrible.

BUT wait until a good operator got on the key - say for OBS period, and he'd have that USCG Commsta humming, he'd be working stations two at a time, moving one to 468 and one to 480 and getting two OBS before the station would call WCC or WLO.  Fantastic.  In the Pacific, who could compete with NOJ with its dozen of remote receivers - even as far as Adak Island - they covered the whole Pacific at night.  What a set up.

Yes it was too bad - if I were in charge, I wouldn't have let it happen.   500 kHz would be the crown jewel.  If you got 500 kHz you were the getting the BEST assignment.

73

DR

[Bryan Fisher]

David,

I went to RM school in 1976 and operated on ships and at commstas 1976-1992.  While I understand that there were some poor operators - I monitored a couple myself and had to relieve them from watch - I hardly think of us as having been a 'national embarassment' and I'll stand my own record as a CW operator against anything you can come up with. 

And when it comes to that, there were quite a few operators in the world merchant fleet who weren't all that exceptional, a number of them who were just plain bad, and just a couple (I could count them on one hand) who were absolutely pathetic (3EOK3 comes to mind as one of the truly horrible fists I ever heard in my life - a confused series of 'dahs' that made no sense whatsoever; there wasn't an operator at NMC who ever successfully copied a message from him).

But the thing was, we made do.  I quite enjoyed working CW, preferably on HF, but MF was fine, even though it was generally short-range.  It's true that the '100 miles' limit you mentioned was quite an understatement on the part of the Coast Guard, but in the daytime we didn't get a whole lot more than vessels a few hundred miles out.  Night was a different matter; I heard NMA, NBA, VAI, NOJ, and a lot of other stations on 500 at night, so the range was phenomenal.  Also, we had ex-NMQ and ex-NMW remoted to us, so we covered the west coast fairly well.  Oh...and I'm here to tell you that NO call EVER went unanswered when I or my section was on watch.  I can't answer for what happened later in the 80s and into the 90s, because I was more of a watch supervisor than a watchstander, but I demanded a lot from my people and neglect of their circuits was sure to bring scorching criticism from me.

What you may not understand about USCG commsta's is that, while they have the responsibility to answer calls from the public and to vigilantly monitor distress and calling frequencies, they are primarily military communication facilities, and those "lower proficiency" positions you mentioned (landline, broadcast, radioteletype) were NOT 'lower proficiency,' they required the operator to understand wave propagation, frequency selection, keying systems, cryptology, patching, system troubleshooting, AUTODIN/NAVCOMPARS procedures, and a plethora of other procedural matters that were more complex than what was expected of a newly-reported RM3, so your 'required level of professionalism' hierarchy for commercial stations was actually reversed for military commstas.  Whether you agree with it or not, that's the way it was.  I reported to NMC and stood CW, RATT and voice watches because that's what we were taught in RM school.  Later I learned more about how to send messages via teletype (a direct connection to the DOD communication system, not some plain-and-simple commercal TWPL drop), working with several different types of crypto systems (different restart times, different keying systems, external keying remotes, etc.), then becoming a Technical Controller, which required a great deal of knowledge of how to monitor and troubleshoot internal and intersite systems, microwave links, etc....and finally, after qualifying as landline and broadcast operator, reaching the peak of responsibility for a watchstander, watch officer, where you were charged with responsibility for running the whole show for twelve hours at a shot.

I will admit this: the Coast Guard placed less and less emphasis on the importance of MF and HF CW as we entered the 90s, and eventually drove it out, but that's a mindset: newer is better, and we MUST change change change.  Sadly, this (in my opinion) was the force that drove 500kHz out of service in the CG, and I think it was a mistake.  Those in charge at at that time (1990 onward) were so interested in playing with shiny new toys (data burst communication leaps to mind) that they turned their noses up at CW operations, and that was all she wrote.

In conclusion, this could easily turn into a 'he said, she said' thing, but I'll just say that I encountered a LOT of 'lids' in the merchant service (usually some s**t-fist that showed up in the middle of a really hot OBS period and ruined my roll), so this is NOT a black-and-white issue.  Both sides had good AND poor operators, and we both had the good sense to get around it and get things done.

73s

Bryan Fisher
ex-RMC, USCG
NXFN / NRUO / NMW43 / NMC / NLVS / NYCQ / NBTM / NRV / NMEL / NHWR

[David Ring]

Hello Bryan,

You have no arguments from me that there were some terrible operators around on merchant ships.  There were.  Although very very few poor operators on USA merchant ships.  Why?  First they had to pass the ITU 2nd class radiotelgraph certificate with 20 word per minute and 16 cipher group receiving and sending tests and a theory, communications law and radiotelegraph practice exam.  Other countries such as Canada and the UK required a technical college degree to even sit for the examinations.

I've experienced them from being an operator on ship and one at a commercial coast station in the USA.  But except for the unqualified (or poorly qualified) that were admitted by the FCC when they change their interpretation of the ITU rules and regulations and started admitting "Amateur Extra" operators some of who had taken a "multiple choice examination" for copying Morse and DID NOT take the cipher group receiving test (16 groups per minute, with a minimum of one minute solid copy out of five minutes sent).  The ones that took the multiple choice Morse test only had to guess at the answers to questions asked about what was sent.  Someone who had copied "PSILABELPSIA" as one of the words of the sender's location, probably could guess at the correct answer:  PHILADELPHIA.

Had the USCG required that each RM have the same skills as the ITU required and had them demonstrate them, there would have been none of this.  But this eventually wasn't done - it WAS done early on, but by the 1980s.

I'm NOT saying that ALL USCG RM were bad - far from it - off all the excellent operators I know more than half of them were USCG or USN trained.  What I am saying is that in the 1980s and 1990s the on-the-air performance of the USCG on 500 kHz was an true embarrasment.  Sometimes ships had to call on HF or 2182 to get the station to answer up on 500 kHz.  It was bad.

In the "sound files" section there are recordings of portions of both the USCG turtle logging tapes of the 500 kHz watch receiver during the SOS of "Prinsendam" (1980) and "Marine Electric" (1983).  The location of the Marine Electric was off the coast of Virginia.  Where is NMN?  An SOS is being called.  Where is he?  NMF here in Marshfield, MA finally answers NMN and then calls NMN on the land line.  Those two recording - among many are on the Sound Recordings page - one interesting one is a recording of NMA.  You might want to listen to it:  http://mikea.ath.cx/www.n1ea.coastalradio.org.uk/morse_recordings.htm  It was sent by one of this groups R/O'''s.  Unfortunately in the 1980s this was what we got on 500 kHz.  And this fellow on the recording was better than some.

It's over now - but I still maintain that the USCG brass did our nation no public relations benefit with such poor operators - those excellent operators surely existed - but this is what ships heard at "the front desk".

Certainly a better performance should have been presented to the world.

73

DR

[Mike Zbrozek]

 

 

Hello Group-

 

David makes many valid points in his arguement regarding the poor USCG Ops on 500 KHz.

I sailed from 1980-1996 and it didnt take me long to see that sending amvers and obs to a USCG 500 Opr was

a waste of time. I was a Radio Electronics Officer that enjoyed sending CW and made it a point to use this mode

when sending amvers/obs. I had to use Commercial stations. It was a pleasure to use a professional coastal telegraph

station. I do not accept  some of the  comments from ex USCG RM that they did their best. Its unfortunate that most didnt

follow your example. Do not forget that when a foreign ship visits the USA  they heard the poor USCG Ops and this left a bad

advertizement for our country. Foreign ships have no idea about the pecking order for USCG radio watch duties.

When a ship hears such poor Ops thats his first impression of 500 KHz along the US  coastline. What would you

think if you sailed along  somebodies coastline and heard such fumblers?

 

Frankly I have plenty of  horror stories in dealing with the USCG but I dont have the time

or desire to write a book on this  subject via this newsgroup. Lets be honest, its all  history now

and I am happy that I dont have to sail  anymore.....

 

OK, I cant resist one more story...back in 1983 I worked for MSC and sailed along the eastcoast USA for many months

aboard the USNS Kane/NZSK. This survey ship was in Norfolk  for a few days and I went to see NMN. I got a small

tour from the Duty Officer and he showed me the  500KHZ position (separate room) and then took me to the HF

Ops room. I told him that I have tried to raise NMN on 6, 8, 12, and 16MHz Sitor many times over the past  fews days.

He then showed me the bank of RTTY machines right outside the HF CW Radio Op Room. He looked down and they

were all turned off. He then asked the Female RM womanning the 6/8 MHz cw  psn and asked why they were turned off.

She said, " They are too noisy when somebody starts them going and we have to work CW at the same time, so we turn them off"

The Officer turned red. I wonder what he said and did to her after I left NMN. This is our USCG  at work.

Oh yes, I saw how the Male RM used a hand key at the 500 KHz position...he just banged the key like they do in a stupid

Hollywood film....no wonder NMN sounded like a guy was smashing ants upon the table when sending CW......

 

 

Regards

Mike K8XF

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: David Ring

[Bryan Fisher]

Hi Group,

I can't deny that the things you've seen and experienced are truly embarrassing, especially for me and my colleagues at NMC (Lanier, McIlwain, Hobson, et al) who were every bit as competent as anyone a mile across the turf down at KPH, or at KFS, KOK, or anywhere else.  In fact, Lanier was hired by KFS straight out of his USCG enlistment (I think he drove straight down there and went to work the same day), McIlwain was hired at KLC in Galveston, while Hobson went to work as an emergency communicator for the City of Seattle and one other guy, Bowman, was hired straightaway as a communicator for the State Department.

I can't answer for operators on the east coast, as I never worked there; I was a Pacific Ocean guy.  If I'd have worked there, I'd probably have most enjoyed working in San Juan, PR at NMR, the only 'CW only' CommSta in the Guard. 

And as a shipboard communicator, I DID have problems trying to raise both NMN and NMC on voice and RATT when I was off Peru in POLAR STAR/NBTM; in the first case, I had to raise NMR on CW and have them landline NMN to come up, while raising NMC involved calling KMI on voice and having them make a phone call over to NMC to have their SCN voice operator put down his book, turn up the volume, and answer my calls on 17mhz.

And then, when I was stationed at NMC, there was one instance when I came on watch and was told by the offgoing RATT operator that the icebreaker was 'unreachable' and that comms had been lost.  The operator took his magazine and breezed out of the position.  I look on our azimuth map for NBTM's position (off southern South America), then checked the frequency in use (2mhz, at 7am PST, broad daylight outside), the receive antenna (the 'north horizonal log periodic'), and the transmitting antenna (the omni-directional log periodic).  I changed to a south-facing vertical log periodic antenna on both transmit and receive, then checked our frequency propogation chart (I believe I went up to 17mHz or 22mHz SCN), and the icebreaker came in like they were anchored off Point Reyes.

I guess I'm trying to say that, in spite of what your experienes may have been, there was a hardcore knot of highly professional operators in Coast Guard Communications, of which I consider myself one, who held to highest standards and did NOT skive off listening to noisy frequencies, turn off loud equipment, or any other thing that youv'e mentioned.  We stood alert, capable, professional watches, received respect and admiration from the maritime community, and took great pride in our abilities.

I'm sorry that you found my lesser colleagues to be such a burden.  I'm sure that we in the ZUT club would have satisfied you in every way.  It's too bad we'll never have that chance now, isn't it?

73s

Bryan

[Bryan Fisher]

One other thing...if you're going to characterize the entire corps of communicators by your single visit to NMN that day, you're being grossly unfair.  If you'd seen me or one of my mates in our watch section at work, you would have come away with a far better impression.  Please don't generalize this way.

Bryan

Mike Zbrozek <k8...@verizon.net> wrote:

[David Ring]

Hello Bryan,

Yes, your stories - the "better parts" of them are like the USCG that I know and love.  Like the fellow on the icebreaker who WAS listening on the correct frequency and came right up.

I was involved with the Prinsendam SOS and rescue in 1980. 

ms Prinsendam by a certain time had lost both her main generators, and emergency generators, and Chief Radio Officer, Johan "Jack"  van der Zee, told me he was on battery power, and asked me to take over the distress communications so he could conserve battery life.

Usually the USCG takes over when a ship is in distress near the USA coast.  The operator was not really bad but he was quite slow and often didn't get what was being sent the first time.

I told NOJ (Commsta Kodiak) that if they didn't put a good operator on 500 kHz that I would take over the SOS communications myself.

I did that.  That night I sent out three DDD SOS SOS SOS DDD calls preceeded by the auto alarm signal.  As you can imagine the log keeping that night was overwhelming, with telephone calls to AT&T Point Reyes, KMI, 2182 kHz USB MAYDAY traffic and communications with the Prinsendam and Kodiak, as well as 5680 kHz with Elmendorf Air Force Base.  The last time I ran those four second dashes of the auto alarm keyer out that night, I probably let them go for two or three minutes - I used the time to type my log as I was keeping my log on a piece of writing paper instead of the typewritten log that we were expected to keep (although not required).  That time one more ship appeared on 500 kHz, the Great Land./ WFJP  , a roll-on, roll-off (ro-ro) ship run by Totem Express of Seattle which made a twice weekly cargo service from Tacoma to Anchorage along with her sister ship the Westward Venture/KHJB.

Even though the auto alarm had rung three times previously, the R/O had gone to the receiver, heard nothing and then turned it off - not waiting the three minutes required by law as the SOS following the auto alarm was required by ITU treaty to be delayed to allow a Radio Officer to get out of bed, get his clothes and shoes on, and get himself to the radio room.  Usually - but not always the radio officer was quartered in the forward house of the ship, but not always, and sometimes it took a few minutes to get to the radio room, unlock the door, turn off the auto alarm and turn on the receiver.  Obviously this R/O did not wait - another shameful moment in maritime radio history.

Since Williamsburgh/WGOA did not have teletype (RATT) of any type - many ships had 55 60 55 100 baud Baudot unprotected and simplex radioteleprinter over radio (SITOR) which was an error correcting mode, the USCG had a parcell of paper work for us to run through.

We also had a "needed drug list" for the passengers we found suddenly domiciled in our passageways and in our staterooms as requested by Dr. David Hudson, of Elmendorf AFB.  He later arrived on Williamsburgh and spent lots of time in the R/R with comms.

All of this communications was handily provided by the USCGC Boutwell/NYCQ (WHEC-719) which is a large "Hamilton" class gas turbine powered cutter with 500 kHz - they literally FLEW out of Sitka, Alaska they arrived so fast. 

NYCQ called me on 500 kHz, and requested that I go up - he would transmit on the usual USCG Cutter frequency of 466 and I would use the normal civilian ship frequency of 468 kHz.

The RM that sent my traffic asked of course if we had RATT (teletype) but we didn't so he started ripping through the messages - some from the Commandant, some from SAR, etc.  He started in at about 25 wpm, but I asked him if he could send faster (QRQ 35) and he started out at a good 35 wpm.  The traffic was long and there was no need dragging out the time required - we were both busy.

I got his messages and I sent my messages - I think both of us broke the other twice in the three or four hours we had messages - it was uninterupted flow of messages.  The USCG unlike the US Navy used break in - and used time saving proceedures adopted by commercial WT stations.  This was an excellent operator.  Just like the other USCG operators I know and love.

Bryan, this is what we needed on 500 kHz.

If this was a one time event - there would be no comment - but this type of display of incompetance persisted for nearly 20 years.  There were SITOR machines that you could connect to and get the answer back from - but if you had an emergency you could NOT get the attention of an operator?

Why?  I finally found out why.  There was a difference between the teleprinter machines used at the Commstas.  Instead of being International machines which conform to the ITU regulations, they were national machines which conformed to Western Union usage.  The signal for BELL in ITA2 (International 'Telegraphic Alphabet #2) which was used Internationally on wire, sea cables and on radio was FIGS J.  (Figure shift, then the letter "J").  But on Western Union Domestic teleprinters, the BELL code was FIGS S.  It took me several years to figure this out - as one would have expected that ANY coast station in the world would use the correct teleprinter.  No so at USCG.  The signal that rang the bell was ITA2 FIGS J which printed the apostrophe ( ' ) on International machines - but as soon as I discovered this, I'd just send FIGS J then FIGS S - and repeat that sequence - and as if by magic - the USCG operator would respond!

Of course, after a suitable time stations - including myself would just give up, and go to HF CW or 500 kHz which was better than getting someone to attend the SITOR machine.  Unfortunately ships no longer have that option.  Ships - including myself - also tried to contact the USCG on HF radiotelephone - on what you can the SCN.  These are Internationally ITU assigned duplex frequencies.   Ships should use the lower frequency to call, but often this frequency was turned down at the USCG stations, so finally I learned to call on the higher frequency - the one that the USCGC Cutters and other USCG Coast Stations used - I got answered immediately, and after a mild dressing down on using the "wrong" frequency, I'd shift to the correct lower frequency of the duplex pair and commence communications.  It worked if you knew how to do it.

For my last period at sea from 1986 to 1991, I was on the SS KING/WAKL which was on a coastwise (coastal) run in the USA from Corpus Christi, TX to Sewaren, NJ.  I had no trouble at all passing the required AMVER messages to NMG USCG Radsta New Orleans, Louisiana, or to NMA USCG Radsta Miami, FL, but once we got out of range of those two station along the lower USA East coast (above Jacksonville, FL) I tried every day for those eight years to call COMSLANT Master Station, NMN on 500 kHz.  You would think that the Master Station would have more talented peope on 500 kHz but such was not the case, I would daily call NMN on 500 kHz to send our required by US law AMVERs, but after about five calls, I'd just call Yarmouth Coast Guard Radio (Canada), VAU.  In eight years, VAU responded on the FIRST call each and every time I called.  On two occasions, they responded on the second call.  But they ALWAYS responded within two calls - even from distances of over 900 nautical miles from Yarmouth/VAU.  I quickly shifted to their 489 kHz and passed traffic.  Such a joy!

When we got close to Sewaren, NJ, NMF USCG Boston with their remote receivers on Governor's Island New York City, heard us and worked us without problems.

Seeing how the USCG was in my opinion "making sure that 500 kHz WT" would NOT work, I got together with US Congressman Gerry Studds (D) of Massachusetts - head of the House Subcommittee on "Merchant Marine and Fisheries" and tried a long shot:  To civilianize the USCG - to put people - like you, Bryan, and those other USCG RM who LOVED their job and did it well as well as us people from the US Merchant Marine - to work as CIVILIAN employees of a civilianized Coast Guard - like Canada - like the excellent Canadian Coast Guard radio station such as Yarmouth, NS VAU, Halifax, NS VCS, Sydney, NS VCO and the rest of them.  Unfortunately (it WAS a long shot) this idea didn't fly.

However, if it had flown, you and I - and all the other USCG and US Merchant Marine (USMM) radio operators, captains, mates, etc. would STILL be working.  We'd have a job.  The USCG might not have "proven" that 500 kHz "did not work" that it was obsolete.  We'd not have the joke of GMDSS where the mates on the bridge turn OFF the alarm receivers responding to the SOS from ships because they're annoying.  Ships WOULD have people who knew how to use the GMDSS equipment - RADIO as well as SATCOM - and make sure it worked.

Right now SOLAS - Safety of Life At Sea - has a new meaning S # ! t  Out of Luck At Sea.

Every day now passes with the current Radio Officers attempting to contact the USCG to test their equipment - and guess what?  The situation is unchanged.  They cannot contact the USCG.  It isn't their equipment, they CAN contact civilian manned station like Mobile Marine Radio / WLO in Mobile, AL USA with ease.

During Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, LA the USCG's ability to communicate with their ships and air resources was completely out except for VHF.  WLO was subcontracted to furnish communications - and was paid for it.  But day to day, WLO continues unsubsizied while the SATCOM (subsizied) and USCG (subsizied) furnish GMDSS communications.  When distress situations happen - guess what happens - just as it has been happening for over 20 years -- those systems fail, and WLO comes on to provide communications.

A free market model would work better - and that free market model would have preserved Morse, preserved RCA's International Morse Point-to-Point (PTP) network, RCA's, TRT's and ITT's Marine Coast Station, AT&T's Marine Radiotelephone stations - and WE WOULD ALL HAVE EMPLOYMENT.

My tax dollars - and yous too - subsizied an easier but less reliable system - and seafarer's safety and our jobs were sacrificied.

I trust you understand my point was to critize the brass and leadership of the USCG and not the amazing men and women in the trenches.  THEY are our brothers and they deserve ALL the praise and recognition that we can give them.   The blame goes to what surely must be stupidity and incompetance elsewhere in those that direct the USCG  - for that lack of knowledge, expertise, and competance showed over and over again over many years - and seems to be showeing still today.

Morse wasn't "high tech" and glitzy for the brass, so they killed it, the USCG brass deliberately made it not work - despite the personnel resources of highly competent men and women.  They continue to this day with their pressuring the FCC to drop the radiotelegraphy frequency assignments in the FCC rules and regulations - something which the FCC assures me isn't going to happen.

73

DR

-30-

[Chris Thompson]

David, (and the group),

 

I was stationed at NMN from 1987 to 1991, and found myself to be one of the few who enjoyed CW and took pride in standing a good watch. Many watches, I would swap assignments with other operators so I could work CW for the whole 12 hour shift, then I’d work some mobile CW on the way home on the ham bands, and to relax once I’d gotten home, I’d fire up the Drake Twins (a very nice Sherwood modified “C” line) to work a little CW……

 

I remember working WAKL many times – but can’t recall if it was on HF or MF, or both?

 

While it goes against my grain to admit it, the typical Radioman of that time did not do CW very well. And while I disagree with the position, 500 was “low man on the totem pole”, usually getting the least qualified ops assigned.

 

David, maybe you remember working a pretty good op at NMN who used a bug during that time frame – that would have been me, most likely, as I think I was the only one who used a Vibroplex on watch during that period….

 

Oh well, those days are gone.

 

73,
Chris Thompson, K4HC

TCC, USCG (Retired)

[David Ring]

I certainly DO remember you Chris - and I remember you by that name - what a small world!  Yes, I fondly remember your beautiful fist - and the way you answered me on 500 kHz before even the AGC on my receiver settled down from my calling you - ah, those were the days.

I also fondly remember working a US Navy operator - one of the LAST Morse operators the Navy had - I guess they were at the Phillipines and Panama Canal - NBA - the last US Navy stations around - and NBA handled public correspondence as well!  RMC Tom (TC) Chirhart, USN and later USCG handled an XXX Medico for me on the SS COVE TRADER/KRBY when a crew member had appendicitis.  I had to ZBM2 the 500 watch RM to get to TC who was supervisor that shift, but as soon as TC got on the key, the traffic got handled blazingly fast and accurately.  It isn't time for training when a man is injured or a ship is on fire.  Let them copy and learn from the experienced hand at that time and see how it is done.  TC was there when the chopper that carried the man to hospital landed.  Another excellent op and friend.

I even got to visit TC at San Juan/NMR and met a man I'll never forget - he was also a top notch Morse operator - Excellent Jones - XL was his sine.  His mother must have known what kind of stuff he was made of because he not only was of the highest caliber of men I've ever met in my life - the kind you could trust on a battle field - but a real professional radioman - he sent as beautifully as he copied.

These are the types of operators that the seagoing public deserved to hear.  EVERY one of them makes me proud to be an American and proud to be an American Radio Officer.

Zulu Bravo, Chris!

73

DR

[Jeffrey Herman]

On Sat, 6 Dec 2008, David Ring wrote:

> This is the USCG list given by Bryan:
> (1) 500A (500kHz calling frequency watch)
> (2) 500B (copy traffic on working freq//back up 500A operator)
> (3) Voice (2182kHz)
> (4) Air/Ground
> (5) HF CW (6/8/16 mhz)
> (6) RTTY ship/shore (unencrypted)
> (7) RTTY ship/shore (encrypted)
> (8) Broadcast / Landline
> (9) Technical Control
> (10) Watch supervisor/watch officer

At NMO (Hawaii), in addition to Bryan's list above, we had positions for:

(a) VHF (which meant listening to channels 16 and 23 on remote base sites
on Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and Big Island -- 8 speakers, sometimes all with
different conversations occurring simultaneously)

(b) HF SSB voice: 4/6/8/12/16/22 MHz

(c) In addition to HF CW 6/8/16 MHz listed above, we also monitored
4/12/22 MHz CW. One op would take 4/6/8 and the other 12/16/22. These
six Collins 651S receivers were set to scan the calling bands; we'd
have to listen for "NMO NMO NMO" going from a high to low to high
audio freq'y as the rcvrs continued to scan until we hit the "stop
scanning" switch.

(d) Landline TTY (six machines all churning out continuous msg tfc)

Rotation among all these positions took place every 4 hours.

Don't forget that military comms took precedence over comms with
commercial vsls. Also, besides having radio guards for CG cutters, we
also were taking and passing tfc for some Navy ships.

73,
Jeff KH6O

Former CG Radioman, but now an:

[Bryan Fisher]

Hey, Jeff (and Group),

Thanks, Jeff, in all of these responses I keep forgetting to emphasize that our military duties came first - of course, lifesaving and SOLAS were among those military duties - but we had a lot on our plate most of the time and it wasn't always a walk in the park for us (e.g., 3 WMEC's, 4 WLB's, 1 WHEC, 1 WAGB, 2-5 USNS/NOAA ships all on the guardlist at once, plus ongoing MEDICO traffic, weather/UMIB/NTM broadcasts, and that off-and-on ALTROUTE from PACAREA that used to have us handling over 1,000 AUTODIN messages every hour for days on end...and hey, don't forget to shoot audio levels on the intersite lines before you sign off, etc.).  I think the only way a commercial operator could get a TRUE perspective on what went on at CG CommStas (NMC, at least) would have been to put them into the rotation for a few weeks so they could see more than they could on a 15-minute walkthrough, during which they were almost guaranteed to see one of the poor performers do something stupid or inattentive.

And for the record, I've gone over to KPH and visited them ... saw the 500 operator with his feet up, reading a Zane Grey novel, kicked back and comfortable, so this could easily have been perceived as a slack attitude by someone who didn't have the proper perspective...it was when he continued talking to me and was taking traffic from a guy that I really understood what a real professional was:  he engaged me in an unbroken conversation, feet up and hands behind his head, while a vessel sent him an entire message, and then, "just a second," he said, turned around and typed out the entire message (it wasn't a short one, either), QSL'd it, (dit dit / dit dit) and then resumed the conversation without missing a beat.  Copied the whole schmeer in his head while he and I were talking, remembered the whole thing...I was an RM1 at the time and gave myself credit for being a pretty good CW operator but I shrunk up like a spider on a hot skillet when I saw him do that.  I still had (have) a lot to learn.

Nevertheless, whenever we needed help with something on MF and it was time to call on the pros, we knew we could count on KPH, KFS, KLB, KOK, or any other commercial station to help us out...they had our back, for sure.

73s

Bryan Fisher
ex-RMC, USCG
NXFN / NRUO / NMW43 / NMC / NLVS / NYCQ / NBTM / NRV / NMEL / NHWR

[Bryan Fisher]

David,

I had to pleasure of working with Excel Jones out at NRV, and later crossdecked over to his WHEC to pick up some SOP notes from him in San Diego...and you're right, that was one outstanding radioman and gentleman.

Bryan

[David Ring]

NRV, NMR, NMO were the easiest stations to work - probably because "all they had was CW" - but they were much easier to work than NMN or NMC on HF - It wasn't uncommon to work NRV with an arrival or departure message.   When we had to send USMER - United States Merchant Marine Postion Reports - we were required by law to send to US Government stations - and that meant one of those three stations when in EU, AF, or ASIA.

I had the pleasure of working a dawn watch on 8 MHz at NMR - they had a great signal - but the USCG didn't spent enough money on them - they only had omini directional antennas for receive - so during sunrise/sunset you couldn't knock down the echo of ships calling from 7 to 12,000 miles away.

Yes, XL was a great fellow - glad he was ar NRV.  I think my last message of my career was sent to NRV.

73
DR

[Mike Zbrozek]

 

 

Hello Bryan and Group -

 

After reading about how much knowledge and experience is required of a USCG RM did this

job ever burn up people. I remember seeing NMN SSB position and the watch OP must have had a dozen

receivers mounted into a wall to listen to.....thats crazy.....I am also sure the pay was poor. Did the USCG actually

keep people at comm centers very long? Too me this type of job would give me heartburn.

 

 

Mike K8XF

[Bryan Fisher]

Hey, Mike

I have to say, you've probably gotten to the nub of the matter at last. The average tour at a CommSta was three years, and yes, it could be a bit of a burnout after awhile.  I guess it all depended on how 'into it' you were. There seemed to have been different levels of involvement. 

First there were the people who were just into it for the paycheck, which meant they'd come in, do what was necessary to get through their watch, and go home.  (And yes, the pay wasn't all that great, but it wasn't poverty-level by any means).  These people would have been at the low end of the bell curve. 

Then there were the largest bunch, the middle of the curve, which were the majority of RMs who took pride in their work and were competent and able, but who had a life outside of the comm center and didn't take things home with them, but who could man (or 'woman') any position ably and operate with confidence.  Then there were those on the upper end, which I'll subdivide into two classes: Hams and non-Hams. 

I was a non-Ham.  I really got into what I was doing, enjoyed the technical complexities of patching and operating these complicated systems, and really, really dug CW.  In other words, to set up a really complex ZNI-1 system and establish a full-duplex 1K24F1B circuit was a lot of fun, and the night we set up a command-and-control circuit that allowed two 210-footers to communicate automatically, through a series of control hubs, just by keying up their equipment and sending (one was off Cape Hatteras, the other was off Adak, Alaska) was total candy-store to me.  Or the time I was monitoring 8mhz at around 3am and picked up an USMER from a US-flag vessel that was just leaving port in India and was headed for Colombo, Sri Lanka, was a good time for high-fives among us CW hardcores - we're yelling "DX, baby!" and getting all excited.  But that was our JOB...our profession.  When I went home, that was all she wrote.

Then there were the HAMS.  These guys were the total hard-cores.  They'd spend their entire watch (when they weren't doing their assigned duties, I mean) patching together equipment, hanging over the ET's shoulders in the electronics shop when they tore down a 651S-1A or were working on crypto equipment, and spent a great deal of time with propagation charts, waveguide tech manuals and the like, up to their waists in equipment cabinets, and of course they burned up the airwaves when they stood CW watches.  But this is where we differed - once they'd get off watch, they'd high-tail it for home, fire up their amateur equipment, and spend the greater portion of their off hours ON THE RADIO.  I just never understood that level of involvement.  And I used to tweak their noses a little, because they'd lead with their chins, saying "I'm an AMATEUR RADIO OPERATOR!" and I'd tell them, "Well, I'm a PROFESSIONAL radio operator!"  All in fun, of course, but we did razz them quite a bit.

At any rate, I think the fact that RMs rotated between ships, group offices, district comm centers and CommStas was probably a good reason for them not to have had time to build up the professionalism that would have been necessary to stand really top-drawer 500 watches.  You'd barely get acclimated when your tour was up and off you'd go to some VHF-only group office on the upper Pig Knuckle River in the 2nd District and you'd forget everything you'd just learned.  Not like the old days (old Navy, or British Navy, I mean), where you'd be assigned to ONE ship or ONE station and there you'd be for the duration of your service.  If we'd been allowed to do that (an impractical and impossible notion, by the way), there'd have been a knot of hard-core operators at USCG CommStas that would have compared to any other set of operators anywhere.

73s

Bryan Fisher
ex-RMC, USCG
NXFN / NRUO / NMW43 / NMC / NLVS / NYCQ / NBTM / NRV / NMEL / NHWR

[Mike Zbrozek]

 

 

Hi Bryan -

 

Tnx for the interesting msg reply. I  always knew that a person that was a dedicated ham made a great OPR

at a shore station. I think the same can be said  for seagoing Radio Officers. Of all the guys that I met in my  career

some of the best cw ops and electronics techs were dedicated Hams. Those that were not hams were content on just

riding the boat until their tour was up. That was the case with the guy I sailed with when I  got my  6 months sea svc

endorsement. He was a ham but only a ham because he wanted to make fone calls via a fone patch to his  xyl

once in a while. He never lifted his  finger to do any maintenance and was happy to read books on the occult in his

quarters. Needless to say I didnt learn much from this grizzle old grouch....HI....he was a perfect MSC Radio Officer content

on getting OT sending and receiving long winded BS MSC messages. In the pre-satellite days the cw tfc on those MSC ships

was  astronomical........and that was perfect for a person that didnt care to fix stuff. He had no time to made repairs.

Just call a shore tech the US Govt will pay....needless to say MSC didnt have a high regard for people like that

and this guy never in his 30  plus years with MSC have a steady ship. Even the US Govt keeps tabs on Radio Officers and all the repairs that

have to be done on the ship you sailed upon.

 

73

[Jeffrey Herman]

Merry Christ-Mass to you all from KH6-Land in the Central Pacific!

73,
Jeff KH6O