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Old February 25th 04, 01:06 AM
N2EY
 
Posts: n/a
Default WAR! What is it good for?

No, it's not a political protest thread.

Just a description of what it took to be a radio operator at radio station WAR
back in WW2. Copied from a Yahoo reflector:

This from an article in Radio News of November '42 regarding the radio station
WAR.

"...The average person thinks of a highly trained radio operator a man who can
send radiograms with very little confusion and at a fair rate of speed....say
the messages are actually handled at around fifteen or even twenty words a
minute for a short period of time.

The radio operator on duty at WAR must send or receive or both at a rate of
more than fifty words a minute during the eight hours of his tour of duty. He
must understand the delicate equipment such as teletypwriters, radio types and
siphon recording equipment. He must be able to read manual signals at more
than thirty words a minute and to handle traffic at this speed if necessary.
He must be able to read from recording tape at more than fifty words a minute
and he must be able to operate a teletype machine..."

From [the author's] recollection in 1942 when WAR operators were tested they
had to touchtype at 100 wpm, use a Kleinschmidt perforator at a high rate of
speed and copy recorded slip tape at 100 wpm as well as sending and receiving
manually when the automatic systems would not function.

Operators there at that time included W3GRF(sk), W0DX (sk) W9BRD/VA3ZBB, W0US
and others.


  #2   Report Post  
Old February 25th 04, 02:39 AM
Len Over 21
 
Posts: n/a
Default

In article , PAMNO
(N2EY) writes:

No, it's not a political protest thread.


Of course it is...the POLITICS of trying to keep U.S. amateur radio
stuck with a morse code test forever and ever because you came
upon an OLD bit a data on the 'net and you refuse to give in on that
test despite the WRC-03 decision.

Just a description of what it took to be a radio operator at radio station
WAR back in WW2. Copied from a Yahoo reflector:

This from an article in Radio News of November '42 regarding the radio
station WAR.


Ahem...1942 was SIXTY-TWO YEARS AGO.

A few things changed at Washington Army Radio (WAR) in the next
few years. In 6 years they would come over from the dark side of
the modulation force and do TTY like the rest of the ACAN. By 10
years after 1952 they would start running automatic TTY relay that
could read address preambles on messages and do the switch-over
to another circuit without needing human intervention. It was a sort
of test-bed for the AUTOVON and AUTODIN to come.

While little ADA in Tokyo (3rd rank in number of messages handled
in ACAN) did a mere 220K messages a month, Washington Army
Radio did about 1200K messages a month, the rate due to auto-
switching of addresses.

"...The average person thinks of a highly trained radio operator a man who can
send radiograms with very little confusion and at a fair rate of speed....say
the messages are actually handled at around fifteen or even twenty words a
minute for a short period of time.


I'm sure "the average person" thought so SIXTY-TWO YEARS AGO.
Uh huh... Morsemanship was real high-tech...62 years ago.

You were there talking to "the average persons," right? You got the
stats from a League poll?

The radio operator on duty at WAR must send or receive or both at a rate of
more than fifty words a minute during the eight hours of his tour of duty. He
must understand the delicate equipment such as teletypwriters, radio types and
siphon recording equipment. He must be able to read manual signals at more
than thirty words a minute and to handle traffic at this speed if necessary.
He must be able to read from recording tape at more than fifty words a minute
and he must be able to operate a teletype machine..."


A TTY by Teletype Corporation is a "delicate equipment?!?!?" :-) :-)

"Delicate?!?" A Model 15 or 19?!? Hay-soose, they can crank along
at 60 WPM for days on end as long as someone feeds it paper and
ribbon...and in temperature extremes that will send a human on sick
call! Go try and lift a little Model 15 in its transit case...one-handed.

"Siphon recording equipment?" Don't siphons suck? :-)

From [the author's] recollection in 1942 when WAR operators were tested they
had to touchtype at 100 wpm, use a Kleinschmidt perforator at a high rate of
speed and copy recorded slip tape at 100 wpm as well as sending and receiving
manually when the automatic systems would not function.


Yeah, right..."touchtype at 100 WPM" on a 60 WPM machine?
Not likely...the keyboard kicks back and refuses to accept too fast
a keypress.

"When the automatic systems would not function?!?!?" HAR! HAR!

WHAT "automatic systems" in 1942? You mean the Teletype
Corporations' perf receivers and sending distributors used throughout
ACAN? Sending distributors had two read heads...would sense p-tape
run-out and automatically switch over to the other head. Very
"delicate?" Only if the manual relay person forgot to load the next
message...:-) In that case it would be "delicatessen" instead of
"delicate." The duty officer would enjoy chewing on a deli sandwich
made of butt of TTY relayer...:-)

That's riiiight...the automatic TTY switch-relay wasn't there in 1942!

I'll bet you think that Washington Army Radio just creaked along for
the ten-year interval with all-manual touchtypers creaking away at
100 words a minute on their mills, eyeshades pulled low on the
forehead, listening to sounders, clickering of the bugs as they sent
mighty morse signals over the globe when the Cold War was just
ignited.

Operators there at that time included W3GRF(sk), W0DX (sk) W9BRD/VA3ZBB, W0US

and others.

I hope they had fun operating all that "delicate" equipment weighing
hundreds of pounds per rack-full. Oh, yeah, and playing with the
"siphon."

Yeah, right, a Press Wireless PW-15 is "real delicate." Eighth-inch thick
steel panels on that puppy are "very fragile," too! :-) Probably
consider 15 KW RF output to be "QRP," I'll bet... :-) :-) :-)

I was an actual part of the whole of ACAN, Rev. Jimmie...for three years.
Were you in ACAN or there at Washington Army Radio? Or was it too
"delicate" for you?

Let's hear it for all those Sparkies winning the Great War through
morsemanship. In 1918, maybe. By 1948, NOT.

LHA / WMD
  #4   Report Post  
Old February 25th 04, 07:19 PM
Dan/W4NTI
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"N2EY" wrote in message
...
No, it's not a political protest thread.

Just a description of what it took to be a radio operator at radio station

WAR
back in WW2. Copied from a Yahoo reflector:

This from an article in Radio News of November '42 regarding the radio

station
WAR.

"...The average person thinks of a highly trained radio operator a man who

can
send radiograms with very little confusion and at a fair rate of

speed....say
the messages are actually handled at around fifteen or even twenty words a
minute for a short period of time.

The radio operator on duty at WAR must send or receive or both at a rate

of
more than fifty words a minute during the eight hours of his tour of duty.

He
must understand the delicate equipment such as teletypwriters, radio types

and
siphon recording equipment. He must be able to read manual signals at

more
than thirty words a minute and to handle traffic at this speed if

necessary.
He must be able to read from recording tape at more than fifty words a

minute
and he must be able to operate a teletype machine..."

From [the author's] recollection in 1942 when WAR operators were tested

they
had to touchtype at 100 wpm, use a Kleinschmidt perforator at a high rate

of
speed and copy recorded slip tape at 100 wpm as well as sending and

receiving
manually when the automatic systems would not function.

Operators there at that time included W3GRF(sk), W0DX (sk) W9BRD/VA3ZBB,

W0US
and others.



Real hams. Not these wanabees we have today.

Dan/W4NTI


  #5   Report Post  
Old February 25th 04, 09:04 PM
Len Over 21
 
Posts: n/a
Default

In article .net, "Dan/W4NTI"
w4nti@get rid of this mindspring.com writes:

Operators there at that time included W3GRF(sk), W0DX (sk) W9BRD/VA3ZBB,

W0US
and others.


Real hams. Not these wanabees we have today.


Go for it, Dan boy, "real" hams even if SK by now. :-)

In all fairness, Washington Army Radio was an old, small effort using
old-fashioned (for its time, not ours) up until about the summer of
1942. Quite inadequate to mount a worldwide war effort. The largest
real communications network was maintained by the US Navy back
then (they had already introduced TTY to warships of cruiser size
and above by 1940, the Sigaba real-time encryption cut in in 1941).

The U.S. Army Signal Corps of the beginning 1942 times was, and
their historians grudgingly admit it, not up to the herculean task
ahead. Prior to the Japanese striking Pearl Harbor on the morning
of 7 December 1941, the warning message to the Army commander
on Pearl was sent by RCA commercial-carrier message, not over
any Army radio circuit.

The very first HT (a Motorola design) was operational in 1941, even
used by FDR's Secret Service personnel, but in limited quantities.
The backpack walkie-talkie was still in the design phase in the
summer of 1942, as was the Hallicrafters conversion of their
commercial HF transmitter to the BC-610 military model. High-
power HF transmitters in the military of early '42 were largely
off-the-shelf commercial models or the antiquated 1 KW BC-339
and its big brother, the 10 KW BC-340. ACAN, Army Command
and Administrative Network, was a rather sorry lot in the middle
of 1942, mostly the left-overs of the 20s and 30s sparky days
hardly more than amateur efforts with uniforms. That would change
remarkably in the next year, taking at least two plateau jumps in
both equipment type and quantity...field tested in North Africa and
Italy and over the enormous spans of the Pacific as that island-
by-island campaign began...the Army long-distance radio comms
greatly helped by the USN in the Pacific.

What had been a picayune effort by the Army up to about the
middle of 1942 ended by 1943. By then there was less reliance on
commercial radio carriers for long-distance communications and a
tremendous growth of INTEGRATED wire and radio, truly networked
to enable the excellent logistics capability of the US military
demonstrated in WW2. The era of copying the sparky methods of
the USN for land use was ending...the Army was expanding in
technology of radio and electronics much like the end product of
the Manhattan Project.

The second-highest national priority level (behind only the A-bomb
project) of WW2 was the production of quartz crystals for radios.
In the last three years of WW2, quartz crystal unit production
averaged 1 million units per month from over 30 companies in the
USA! Not any sort of "amateur" effort." Galvin (later Motorola) was
the production Hq for the quartz crystals in a time when artificial
quartz blank growth was not yet known. The vast majority of those
crystal units was intended for non-morse-code radios used on land
and in the air and on landing craft.

The core of network messaging in the military of WW2 was the
teleprinter, principally the militarized models from the Teletype
Corporation headquartered in Chicago...as were Hallicrafters and
Motorola. Teleprinters were ideal for integrated communications,
operating well over both wirelines and radio, capable of 60 words
per minute continuously, needing only to be fed paper and ribbons
and some occasional oil.

The image of the lone morseman with headphones and hunched
over his code key saving the nation was only that...an image...no
relation to reality. That image is UNreal.

LHA / WMD


  #6   Report Post  
Old February 29th 04, 06:08 AM
Larry Roll K3LT
 
Posts: n/a
Default

In article ,
(Len Over 21) writes:

The core of network messaging in the military of WW2 was the
teleprinter, principally the militarized models from the Teletype
Corporation headquartered in Chicago...as were Hallicrafters and
Motorola. Teleprinters were ideal for integrated communications,
operating well over both wirelines and radio, capable of 60 words
per minute continuously, needing only to be fed paper and ribbons
and some occasional oil.

The image of the lone morseman with headphones and hunched
over his code key saving the nation was only that...an image...no
relation to reality. That image is UNreal.

LHA / WMD


Loonie:

Er, I mean, "Lennie." Sorry. How come the "image of the lone morseman
with headphones" is so predominant, if it is not true? In virtually every
depiction
of WWII-Era military communications, the mode being used is Morse/CW.
I know had have known many WWII-Era military radio operators, and they
were all able to use Morse/CW conversationally at speeds in excess of
50 WPM. They told tales of pulling duty watches in which they spent the
entire time with headphones on listening for message traffic in CW. While
they have also spoken of the use of radioteletype, for the most part, that
was used only for the most routine, non-secure message traffic, and mainly
within the CONUS between military installations and defense manufacturing
facilities (which were on a landline net).

Your credibility is zero. You claim that Morse/CW was essentially
unheard of as a primary military communications mode, when, in fact, all
of the evidence is that exactly the opposite is true.

OK. You hate CW. We get it. There's no need to make a barefaced
liar out of yourself to prove your point.

73 de Larry, K3LT

  #7   Report Post  
Old February 29th 04, 12:59 PM
Steve Robeson, K4CAP
 
Posts: n/a
Default

ospam (Larry Roll K3LT) wrote in message ...
In article ,

(Len Over 21) writes:

The core of network messaging in the military of WW2 was the
teleprinter, principally the militarized models from the Teletype
Corporation headquartered in Chicago...as were Hallicrafters and
Motorola. Teleprinters were ideal for integrated communications,
operating well over both wirelines and radio, capable of 60 words
per minute continuously, needing only to be fed paper and ribbons
and some occasional oil.

The image of the lone morseman with headphones and hunched
over his code key saving the nation was only that...an image...no
relation to reality. That image is UNreal.


Some Snippage

Your credibility is zero. You claim that Morse/CW was essentially
unheard of as a primary military communications mode, when, in fact, all
of the evidence is that exactly the opposite is true.


Leonard H. Anderson has never had a problem with misrepresenting
the truth even when the evidence to the contrary was plentiful and
well known to all concerned.

That he feels compelled to continue to make a mockery of his
"character" and humiliate his family name so readily in a public forum
should be adequate evidence that this old man is NOT dealing with a
full deck.

He's ill. That's all there is to it.

OK. You hate CW. We get it. There's no need to make a barefaced
liar out of yourself to prove your point.


Ooooooops! Too late!

73

Steve, K4YZ
  #8   Report Post  
Old March 4th 04, 12:41 AM
William
 
Posts: n/a
Default

(Steve Robeson, K4CAP) wrote in message . com...
ospam (Larry Roll K3LT) wrote in message ...
In article ,

(Len Over 21) writes:

The core of network messaging in the military of WW2 was the
teleprinter, principally the militarized models from the Teletype
Corporation headquartered in Chicago...as were Hallicrafters and
Motorola. Teleprinters were ideal for integrated communications,
operating well over both wirelines and radio, capable of 60 words
per minute continuously, needing only to be fed paper and ribbons
and some occasional oil.

The image of the lone morseman with headphones and hunched
over his code key saving the nation was only that...an image...no
relation to reality. That image is UNreal.


Some Snippage

Your credibility is zero. You claim that Morse/CW was essentially
unheard of as a primary military communications mode, when, in fact, all
of the evidence is that exactly the opposite is true.


Leonard H. Anderson has never had a problem with misrepresenting
the truth even when the evidence to the contrary was plentiful and
well known to all concerned.

That he feels compelled to continue to make a mockery of his
"character" and humiliate his family name so readily in a public forum
should be adequate evidence that this old man is NOT dealing with a
full deck.

He's ill. That's all there is to it.

OK. You hate CW. We get it. There's no need to make a barefaced
liar out of yourself to prove your point.


Ooooooops! Too late!

73

Steve, K4YZ


Steve, now that you and Larry are tailending each other, why not ask
him about his mode always saving the day. He has multiple scenarios,
so you won't get bored.
  #9   Report Post  
Old February 29th 04, 08:35 PM
Len Over 21
 
Posts: n/a
Default

In article , ospam
(Larry Roll K3LT) writes:

In article ,

(Len Over 21) writes:

The core of network messaging in the military of WW2 was the
teleprinter, principally the militarized models from the Teletype
Corporation headquartered in Chicago...as were Hallicrafters and
Motorola. Teleprinters were ideal for integrated communications,
operating well over both wirelines and radio, capable of 60 words
per minute continuously, needing only to be fed paper and ribbons
and some occasional oil.

The image of the lone morseman with headphones and hunched
over his code key saving the nation was only that...an image...no
relation to reality. That image is UNreal.

LHA / WMD


Loonie:

Er, I mean, "Lennie." Sorry. How come the "image of the lone morseman
with headphones" is so predominant, if it is not true? In virtually every
depiction
of WWII-Era military communications, the mode being used is Morse/CW.


If all you see is a code key and all you hear is beeping morse, then
all that can be "depicted to you" is the lone morseman valiantly
serving his country heroically through his skill at morsemanship. :-)

I didn't invent the blinders you are wearing and certainly wouldn't wear
the blunders you make as a "communications veteran of the military."

You've never served the USAF in any capacity as a communicator on
radio or wirelines and certainly NOT before 1956. You just don't know
anything but what you've read or seen in stories told by others.

I know had have known many WWII-Era military radio operators, and they
were all able to use Morse/CW conversationally at speeds in excess of
50 WPM. They told tales of pulling duty watches in which they spent the
entire time with headphones on listening for message traffic in CW.


You know damn few if any at all.

World War 2 ENDED almost 59 years ago. Well before your time.

While
they have also spoken of the use of radioteletype, for the most part, that
was used only for the most routine, non-secure message traffic, and mainly
within the CONUS between military installations and defense manufacturing
facilities (which were on a landline net).


Poor baby...still trying to foist the "depictions" thing again when you've
had NO possible experience in anything military before 1956.

Teleprinter - with or without encryption ("Sigaba") - was begun in the
USN in 1940 on ships of cruiser and heavier class. The HIGHEST
security level required encrypted teleprinter...on ships that meant
radioteleprinter. How did you think the decrypted "Purple code"
messages were forwarded? By bicycle messenger, hand carried?
How do you think the Battle of Midway was coordinated in order to
surprise the Japanese fleet? Encrypted teleprinter is the answer.

Do you think the M-209 Code Converter was used solely for morse
communications? Little unit, non-electrical device for lower-level
cryptographic purposes, made by the thousands by typewriter
companies during WW2. Museum artifact now just as morse keys
are relics everywhere but in amateur radio.

You want to hold the OLD image of Washington Army Radio in your
mind because it is safe, secure, and understandable and that you
want to be a Big Man because you have tested at higher morse rates
as an AMATEUR. You have NO concept of W-A-R as it grew after
the USA involvement with war became increased. You have NO real
concept of military radio during WW2 other than third- and fourth-hand
tales and the selective histories of amateur radio publications.

Your credibility is zero.


Only in your imagination. I BEGAN in radio communications IN the
military in 1953 and remained at that assignment for three years.
HF radio transmission 24/7 trans-Pacific at the 3rd largest ACAN
station (first was W-A-R) in terms of messages handled. I've been
involved with military communications methods, concentrating on
design concerning them full-time and in a consulting basis. That's
through the plateau jumps in technology over a half century that
includes the demise of the vacuum tube and into the era of the large-
scale integrated circuits of solid-state electronics. Hands-on all the
way. Can you say the same after thumbing through old ham mags?

You've never carried an AN/PRC-6 or AN/PRC-10 or hand-cranked an
AN/GRC-9 or spoken over an AN/GRC-26 in its little hut on the bed
of a deuce and a half. [the -6 and -10 are/were VHF and voice, the
-9 was CW/voice and the -26 RTTY/Voice] That was just IN the
military. You've never carried an AN/PRC-119 SINCGARS on your
back and have no real idea of what it is even though a quarter million
of them have been produced. It worked 30 to 88 MHz where you fear
to tread as a morse purist. You've never even had an AN/PRC-104
on your back either even though it IS an HF radio...it's mode is voice
or data like the -119. You've never had to control the mobile and
ground variants based on the R/Ts. You've never used the AN/ARCs
of the USAF or the radionav equipment and probably couldn't define
"station" location in an aircraft. You've never used a TTY terminal
order-wire and certainly not a KL-7 ancient machine (whose details
made WO Walker some money once).

As a USAF "twenty" veteran you had all your military experience
behind a DESK filling out FORMS. You have NO communications
experience while in the military or out of it other than amateur
radio. You show NO sign of being familiar with any military radios
by nomenclature or familiar name nor do you know any non-military
radios other than those featured in ads of ham magazines. You
don't show any signs of wanting to know...even though you could go
to the USAF ACAS website and download a free book of USAF
radio history. I doubt you ever used a KY-nn of any kind during your
desk-jockey air days of communicating over a handset (I include
the jelly unless you were into a hand set).

You claim that Morse/CW was essentially
unheard of as a primary military communications mode, when, in fact, all
of the evidence is that exactly the opposite is true.


[expletive deleted] sweetums. From 1948 onwards W-A-R and all of
ACAN made on-off keying morsemanship downsized to nothing for
all fixed-point to fixed-point circuits that bore the brunt of military
messaging. The USN did the same from about 1960 onwards and the
USAF did it in between USA and USN.

There's all kinds of documentary PROOF that is for public
dissemination and has been for years. You can start at the USAF
AFCC at Scott Field and work outward. "Radio" works by the
same physics regardless of an administration's label of type or
kind. Download "From Flares to Satellites" for an overview, a
good history of communications in the USAF...although a bit too
condensed at only about 90 pages with only a few illustrations.

You can put on your blinders and pump up your morsemanship
all you want. Such will appeal to PCTAs who long for "good old
days" that, like you, they never really experienced in their lifetimes.
You will, of course, demand that reality is like your imaginings and
refuse to believe anyone who was actually IN military
communications. If you have the chutzpah you can call such
as "liars" in a grande job of snowmanship newsgroup poker which
only proves that YOU are the massive LIAR in here.

LHA / WMD



  #10   Report Post  
Old February 25th 04, 09:28 PM
Tony P.
 
Posts: n/a
Default

In article .net,
w4nti@get says...

"N2EY" wrote in message
...
No, it's not a political protest thread.

Just a description of what it took to be a radio operator at radio station

WAR
back in WW2. Copied from a Yahoo reflector:

This from an article in Radio News of November '42 regarding the radio

station
WAR.

"...The average person thinks of a highly trained radio operator a man who

can
send radiograms with very little confusion and at a fair rate of

speed....say
the messages are actually handled at around fifteen or even twenty words a
minute for a short period of time.

The radio operator on duty at WAR must send or receive or both at a rate

of
more than fifty words a minute during the eight hours of his tour of duty.

He
must understand the delicate equipment such as teletypwriters, radio types

and
siphon recording equipment. He must be able to read manual signals at

more
than thirty words a minute and to handle traffic at this speed if

necessary.
He must be able to read from recording tape at more than fifty words a

minute
and he must be able to operate a teletype machine..."

From [the author's] recollection in 1942 when WAR operators were tested

they
had to touchtype at 100 wpm, use a Kleinschmidt perforator at a high rate

of
speed and copy recorded slip tape at 100 wpm as well as sending and

receiving
manually when the automatic systems would not function.

Operators there at that time included W3GRF(sk), W0DX (sk) W9BRD/VA3ZBB,

W0US
and others.



Real hams. Not these wanabees we have today.

Dan/W4NTI


Yes indeed - I'm still irked about having to pass the 20WPM code for my
extra while a friend of mine skated through when they started lowering
the code standards.

Have I taken soldering iron, cutters, etc. to gear? Sure I have. But
right now I really don't have the time to homebrew gear.



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