Hmmm...worked in the ET shop on a Destroyer Tender in about `67.
Watched a buffer go up in smoke when someone plugged it into the DC
outlet instead of the AC. We got an ETN2 to spend several hours running
all over the ship looking for a "DC extension cord" one day. The
difference? As we explained to him: "A DC plug has two prongs on it,
the AC plug has 3."
The ship was so old I sat in "Combat" and watched a radar repeater reset
because the AC in was at 90V. Had the electricians measure it at the
other end and it was 110V. What're ya gonna do?

Steve Thrasher wrote in news:440dc4a1
@news.acsalaska.net:

Hmmm...worked in the ET shop on a Destroyer Tender in about `67.
Watched a buffer go up in smoke when someone plugged it into the DC
outlet instead of the AC. We got an ETN2 to spend several hours running
all over the ship looking for a "DC extension cord" one day. The
difference? As we explained to him: "A DC plug has two prongs on it,
the AC plug has 3."
The ship was so old I sat in "Combat" and watched a radar repeater reset
because the AC in was at 90V. Had the electricians measure it at the
other end and it was 110V. What're ya gonna do?



Which tender? I was aboard Everglades (AD-24) out of Charleston from 1966-
1969. They used to send us to Mayport to do Yellowstone's work for them at
times....(c; Now you have my full attention, another AD sailor! Our cal
lab was designator EAT in the Measure program.

Great duty. Naples, Rota, Puerto Rico, Gitmo Liberty Port, New Jersey shot
16" projectiles over us on the way into the beach targets on the range in
PR. Looked like a VW Bus being shot overhead!

What radios did you have? I see ETN2. Glades had TBK, TBL, TCS in my
beloved Radio 2, RBO, RBA, RBB, URC-32s up in Radio. Radar was AN/SPS-6
and an SPS-21 Pathfinder whos fan belt I had the pleasure of changing while
strapped to the safety rail in 18' waves mid-Atlantic when the damned belt
broke. We couldn't make Europe with that equipment...(c;

Ah, the sound of my TBL 3Khz off your favorite AM rock radio station...(c;

One of the TBKs spent many hours on 80 and 40 meter CW....shhhh....

73 DE W4CSC/MM2

Yeah, I did get my share. Enjoyed it a lot more when it was my turn to
inflict upon others;}
My only experience with Middys was when our team did an unofficial exercise
aboard the USS Leader (MSO 490) off of Charleston. The CO wanted to get some
training in for his sweep team with EOD.
After another long day of diving on contacts (including a complete Mk 6
moored practice mine that had been on the bottom for decades and we were
able to recover for the CO) I was preparing to climb into the rain locker
and heard one middy whine to another that "dinner with the Captain was nice,
but we didn't get ice cream with our pie", I invited the young gentleman to
go for a boat ride (in our rubber duck), he accepted and as soon as the seas
got over 6', I got him to put on a wetsuit (80 degrees) and off we went!
great fun!
I'm pretty sure he got rid of every meal he'd whined about up to that point.
Wouldn't talk to me after that.
MMC

"Larry" wrote in message
...
"MMC" wrote in news:rPXOf.35587$_c.24384
@tornado.tampabay.rr.com:

He got me back by making
me baby sit reservists a couple of weekends later!


Midshipmen? We loved midshipmen. If they didn't hate enlisted men before
they came aboard, they sure as hell did when they took that last walk down
the gangway...hee hee.

I can see you've had all the tricks pulled on you. Bored sailors are an
amazing lot...(c;

Never saw one myself, but we had a Cheif Boats on the USS Holt (FF 1074)
that would get new guys on the night watches going by telling them that the
flying fish were sea bats. Couldn't catch them in a box, had to use a bucket
as they would chew their way out of a box and were EXTREMELY dangerous.
MMC
"DSK" wrote in message
. ..
MMC wrote:
Didn't get nailed by that one (did get sent to DC Central for a tube of
relative bearing grease), but first 'shellback initiation' I pulled a
rotation at the bullnose as look out for the IDL! Weather was nice so it
was
better duty than monitoring the "flushing circulatory action indicator"!

Either of you guys ever encounter a Sea Bat?

DSK

Steve Thrasher wrote in
:

Larry wrote:

Which tender? I was aboard Everglades (AD-24) out of Charleston from
1966- 1969.

USS Arcadia (AD-23) out of Newport. Probably from 1966 to 1967, went
to USS Talbot (DEG-4) at that point until 1969.

What radios did you have?

On the Arcadia I was "allowed" to work on greeks, GRC-27, since nobody
wanted to work on them and I was junior. Funny thing is that when I
described it to my dad...he told me that they used that radio on their
bomber in WWII. Once I was sent over to work on some kinda gizmo on a
can...grabbed the manual and spent about an hour reading it to finally
figure out it was a fax machine! Worked off of a receiver, metal
coated paper...motorized roller...sparks...ozone...fun! I'd never
seen a fax machine before.
On the second ship I worked on just about everything the ET shop was
responsible for, typical...nobody really specialized, whoever was free
went and worked on whatever was broke.

Ah, a fine old ship. I remember her. Roger the Greek 27. I was a cal
tech ET-1598, but I was the resident expert on AN/URC-9 UHF transceivers.
I still have my sheet-metal-capacitor-plate bending tools! I can make a
9 honk out its 10 watts all across 225-400 Mhz, a real feat on URC-9
transmitters...(c;


We couldn't make Europe with that equipment...(c;

Something similar happened to us. We were running down to Puerto Rico
and couldn't raise anyone on the HF. We could hear them calling us.
Finally fired off this old LF xmitter in aux radio (something Dr.
Frankenstein would have loved...final tube was about 12" tall and
soldered in place...had a 120-150lb AC motor to drive the 120-150lb DC
generator for xmit power, had a metal plate inside the cabinet saying
that it was made in 1940) anyhow...they cranked out a slloooowwww
morse code message that was relayed by Rota back to the rest of the
world telling them we were still afloat.


You are referring to the TBK on HF and the TBL on LF/MF! We had two TBKs
and one TBL with trunk conductors in the overhead to long wires fore-aft
between the forward mast and the after king post on Everglades, one for
each transmitter, plus a spare. The final tube wasn't SUPPOSED to be
soldered in place. The big plate wire coming out the side and the grid
wire coming out the top should have gone to a couple of sturdy thumbscrew
post clamps near them. Someone must have broken the porcelain insulator
they were mounted on and never replaced them.... Your power supply must
have been modified at some point with that AC motor. The completely
original TBK/TBL installation in Radio 2 on Everglades had a compartment
behind the main compartment where the M/G sets were mounted on racks.
The little TCS power supplies were also smaller M/G sets in that
compartment. The main drive motors for the transmitters were 115V DC
motors through DC contactors and ran off the ship's steam-powered DC
generators, circa 1952, down in the main engine room behind the reduction
gears. There were 2 DC steam-powered generators as our deck winches were
also archaic and DC operated. If I had both generators running, had all
three transmitters fired up and tuned for maximum output, I could drop
the steam pressure on the main plant by a few pounds when both governors
to the steam turbines in the generators opened up!....(c; That's serious
power! Power is our FRIEND! On a foggy night, I could also fire up the
TBL and make the air glow around its longwire...(c;

The Morse output was limited by how well you had the keying relay in them
adjusted. I could get about 35 wpm out of ours, but there was a decided
chirp on the air above 20 wpm as the load wiggled the main VFO.

There was an LM-21 heterodyne frequency meter hooked to all of them to
set their transmit frequency, but I had some welder buddies come weld me
a rack that a HP 5245L freq counter fit nicely into between the TBKs with
a little rotary coax switch so I could read the frequency directly. The
counter also had a freq standard cable going into the cal lab's primary
frequency standard next door, so the counter was as dead on freq as it
could be aboard. I used to tell the test operators astonished by how
close I could bring the TBKs up on a frequency that my LM-21's crystal
oscillator standard was freshly calibrated. 20 Hz off frequency was
simply unacceptable...(c;

Nice to meet someone from Arcadia. AD duty was great duty. I
wallpapered the cal lab with ships' plaques over our custom-framed kudos
letters from destroyers all up and down the East Coast and the Med. The
Admirals who used to trapse through just loved our "decor" and were so
interested in reading the plaques, they forgot to inspect the spaces,
giving us a string of "outstanding" ratings. CRUDESFLOT 6 and my captain
just beamed they were so proud of EAT's lab....(c;

They had TVs on my Everglades Cablevision system, too!

"MMC" wrote in
:

Never saw one myself, but we had a Cheif Boats on the USS Holt (FF
1074) that would get new guys on the night watches going by telling
them that the flying fish were sea bats. Couldn't catch them in a box,
had to use a bucket as they would chew their way out of a box and were
EXTREMELY dangerous.


I have a story to go with that. David, one of the guys who go with us on
Lionheart from time to time and who owns a 36' sailing cat on our dock, was
sitting at the helm about 3AM, 180 miles off the GA coast, about half
asleep with the autopilot running, staring at the radar. I was tending
winches, which is the 2nd two hours of the watches we stand....

A huge flying fish flew straight in under the Amel's hard top from port and
smacked David hard in the belly at full speed, whatever they fly! It
knocked him clean off the helmsman's seat onto the deck. I got a towel
over the damned smelly fish and got him overboard straight away without
getting the fish oil on me as David picked himself up off the deck.

We were, at that point, BOTH awake for the rest of our watch...(c;

The adrenaline charge was strong enough to make my back ache...

"MMC" wrote in news:eTFPf.39819$_c.13800
@tornado.tampabay.rr.com:

aboard the USS Leader (MSO 490) off of Charleston

Yep, they hated enlisted men by the time they got ashore....convinced we
were trying to kill them...

My transfer off Everglades (AD-24) in Charleston was to Mine Force
Support Group, Atlantic, which changed it's name from Minecraft Support
Unit (MCSU). If you were on Leader, you probably saw our buildings, the
ones with the piles of Packard diesel parts out in the yard to keep them
running. The ET shop was towards the street next to supply and on the
main street the EODU was there. I built Minelant its first calibration
lab, which is why I got the new billet for a cal tech. It all became
SIMA long after I left. The ET boss was CWO-4 Robert Wyatt, who was a
great guy to work for. I remember him breaking a phone handset in half
one day when some NAVSEA bureaucrat transferred him to an answering
machine on the phone. The CO poked his head around the corner and said,
"Bob, you ok?" Mr Wyatt's face was blood red and EVERYONE in the office
heard his message about CWO-4s didn't speak to answering machines in this
man's Navy! It was sure nice working for an EMO who didn't have to worry
himself about making CWO-5. Politics wasn't an issue.

When you were on Leader, did they have that stupid towed sonar fish with
the world's dummest diesel genset and little sonar hut lashed to the
deck? We were the guys who fixed them when the MSO captains dragged them
through bouy chains, beat them against underwater obstructions or just
turned too short, wrapping the cables around the screws. Don't remember
what they called it. The machinist at MCSU made us this big fish hook
we'd tywrap to it to make it look like a giant fishing lure on its dolly
in the shop....

Minelant was my "shore duty" station. Of course, that meant nothing
riding MSOs through 30 degree rolls offshore fixing URC-32 transceivers
and R-390 receivers...strapped to the equipment.