Flips and blips
 

If there are any old sewer-pipe Radiomen (capitol "R") among you (if you have to
ask, then you ain't one), here's something I had to share with you. Tribute to
an old shipmate by Bob 'Dex' Armstrong

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Vic Casciola, Radioman, Shipmate.

Late one evening, before our last reunion, I got a phone call. When I heard the
voice, years melted away.

"Dex... Vic Casciola... You remember me?"

Did I remember Vic? Does a hobby horse have a hickory dick? You bet I remember
Vic!!

Vic had a medical condition that erased a lot of his memory and was phoning to
see if I thought the lads would recall who he was. He didn't want to show up at
the reunion if nobody would remember him. He also wanted his son to know that
long ago, his dad rode the boats.

So, this is for his son. It's not much... Others could do better. I'm not
articulate enough to capture on paper the unique, one-of-a-kind shipmate that
was Vic. All I want to do is validate Vic's credentials.

Vic arrived on Requin wearing paratrooper wings over his ribbons. Paratrooper
wings and Silver Dolphins... Talk about double-dipping lunatics.

Vic was a radioman... Make that triple-dipping lunacy. He was the absolute
master of the "speed key." A contraption radio guys used to tap out flips and
blips that to fellow practitioners of flip and blip transmission, could be
translated into communication understood by normal members of the human race.
Vic could pound out stuff at a rate that constantly frustrated his recipients.
Many nights, radiomen receiving Vic's "heat" would have to tell him to hold up
until they could hunt up some poor devil who could read at his rate... Like
going to find a catcher for Nolan Ryan's fast ball. Vic could bang out code
faster than Gypsy Rose could pop a garter snap.

He was amazing. He was also a master at sneaking stuff into official traffic. In
the old days, boat sailors didn't get fifty word 'poopy-grams'... We got 'Little
Orphan Annie drops' and anything you could con a radioman to sneak into a
message after he caught up on ALLNAV transmissions.

A 'Little Orphan Annie drop' came from naval aviators. The good ones, God bless
'em, would go to the tender, collect your mail, put it into a cleaned up paint
can along with a couple of recent newspapers, a dog-eared Playboy, and two or
three sports magazines. They would tape the contraption up and drop it to you
when you were surfaced.

They would fly over and yell stuff over the radio,

"Mark center... Mark ringer..."

And out of the bottom of a P2V would come a tumbling can. Lookouts would cheer
and the can would slam into the swells.

If you were lucky, someone on deck would fish out the can with a boathook, mail
would be distributed in the control room and we would spike the morale-meter.

If you were unlucky, the sunovabitch would sink... And set up housekeeping with
crabs and a lot of German U-Boat crews. One Christmas, we lost a can on a three
contraption drop. I later learned that a port wine soaked, pecan loaded
fruitcake my aunt sent me, had been misdirected to the deck force of the
Titanic.

That brings us back to method two of clandestine shore communication... Vic
Casciola and his magical speed key. The poor *******s in the Orion radio shack
would get stuff like this...

"REQUIN ETA 1600Z... REQUIRE WELDER FOR DECK DAMAGE ON STAND BY... PHONE
319-6247 FOR RESULTS OF LITTLE LEAGUE SERIES... REQUIN TO DEPART NORFOLK 0800Z
031561... WILL REQUIRE STORES, TWO WEEKS... FUEL... CHARTS ACCORDING TO OP
ORDERS... PHONE 319-4670 TELL MARY DAD WILL FUND PROM DRESS... WILL LOAD 2 MK37
TORPEDOES... HAVE INJURED MAN TO TRANSFER NORFOLK NAVAL HOSPITAL REQUIRE
TRANSPORT... PATIENT AMBULATORY... PHONE 319-4026 OBTAIN RESULTS PREGNANCY
TEST... WILL NEED NEST ASSIGNMENT AND LINE HANDLERS... (pause)... WILL EXPECT
ANSWERS NEXT TRANSMISSION"

Magic Man could get everything from clothing measurements to racing results and
the wardroom never knew.

Vic could fall asleep in the middle of a bar brawl. We didn't know that it was
probably an early indication of his later medical problem.

Once, the diving officer was told that Vic was asleep on watch in the radio
shack. Major no-no. When the diving officer went to the shack, there was
Cassiola wearing headphones with his eyes closed.

"Casciola... You asleep?"

"No sir."

Never opened his eyes.

"Well, what in the hell are you doing with your eyes closed?"

"Checking my eyelids for holes."

The worst duty on Requin was having the below deck watch and having to wake Vic
up. The sonuvabitch could sleep through the last five minutes of a hocky game, a
five hundred pound bomb drop and the second coming of Christ. The COB once said
if Vic had been at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he would have slept through
it. I would rather have taken raw meat from a half-starved Bengal tiger than
have been sent to separate Vic from his rack. It ranked up there with the most
delicate surgical procedures... You had to remove the flashcover from Vic's back
without getting your lights punched out. We toyed with the idea of doing it
electrically, but how could you wire up a guy who could have the tender phone
your mom to wish her a happy birthday?

Vic Casciola... Did we remember you?

Hell no.

Everyone wore Dolphins, paratrooper wings, sent code at the speed of light and
slept like a bank vault.



--

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~k0hb

Hans,

Did/does he have that 'sailors swing' ??

Dan/W4NTI

"KØHB" wrote in message
nk.net...
If there are any old sewer-pipe Radiomen (capitol "R") among you (if you
have to
ask, then you ain't one), here's something I had to share with you.
Tribute to
an old shipmate by Bob 'Dex' Armstrong

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Vic Casciola, Radioman, Shipmate.

Late one evening, before our last reunion, I got a phone call. When I
heard the
voice, years melted away.

"Dex... Vic Casciola... You remember me?"

Did I remember Vic? Does a hobby horse have a hickory dick? You bet I
remember
Vic!!

Vic had a medical condition that erased a lot of his memory and was
phoning to
see if I thought the lads would recall who he was. He didn't want to show
up at
the reunion if nobody would remember him. He also wanted his son to know
that
long ago, his dad rode the boats.

So, this is for his son. It's not much... Others could do better. I'm not
articulate enough to capture on paper the unique, one-of-a-kind shipmate
that
was Vic. All I want to do is validate Vic's credentials.

Vic arrived on Requin wearing paratrooper wings over his ribbons.
Paratrooper
wings and Silver Dolphins... Talk about double-dipping lunatics.

Vic was a radioman... Make that triple-dipping lunacy. He was the absolute
master of the "speed key." A contraption radio guys used to tap out flips
and
blips that to fellow practitioners of flip and blip transmission, could be
translated into communication understood by normal members of the human
race.
Vic could pound out stuff at a rate that constantly frustrated his
recipients.
Many nights, radiomen receiving Vic's "heat" would have to tell him to
hold up
until they could hunt up some poor devil who could read at his rate...
Like
going to find a catcher for Nolan Ryan's fast ball. Vic could bang out
code
faster than Gypsy Rose could pop a garter snap.

He was amazing. He was also a master at sneaking stuff into official
traffic. In
the old days, boat sailors didn't get fifty word 'poopy-grams'... We got
'Little
Orphan Annie drops' and anything you could con a radioman to sneak into a
message after he caught up on ALLNAV transmissions.

A 'Little Orphan Annie drop' came from naval aviators. The good ones, God
bless
'em, would go to the tender, collect your mail, put it into a cleaned up
paint
can along with a couple of recent newspapers, a dog-eared Playboy, and two
or
three sports magazines. They would tape the contraption up and drop it to
you
when you were surfaced.

They would fly over and yell stuff over the radio,

"Mark center... Mark ringer..."

And out of the bottom of a P2V would come a tumbling can. Lookouts would
cheer
and the can would slam into the swells.

If you were lucky, someone on deck would fish out the can with a boathook,
mail
would be distributed in the control room and we would spike the
morale-meter.

If you were unlucky, the sunovabitch would sink... And set up housekeeping
with
crabs and a lot of German U-Boat crews. One Christmas, we lost a can on a
three
contraption drop. I later learned that a port wine soaked, pecan loaded
fruitcake my aunt sent me, had been misdirected to the deck force of the
Titanic.

That brings us back to method two of clandestine shore communication...
Vic
Casciola and his magical speed key. The poor *******s in the Orion radio
shack
would get stuff like this...

"REQUIN ETA 1600Z... REQUIRE WELDER FOR DECK DAMAGE ON STAND BY... PHONE
319-6247 FOR RESULTS OF LITTLE LEAGUE SERIES... REQUIN TO DEPART NORFOLK
0800Z
031561... WILL REQUIRE STORES, TWO WEEKS... FUEL... CHARTS ACCORDING TO OP
ORDERS... PHONE 319-4670 TELL MARY DAD WILL FUND PROM DRESS... WILL LOAD 2
MK37
TORPEDOES... HAVE INJURED MAN TO TRANSFER NORFOLK NAVAL HOSPITAL REQUIRE
TRANSPORT... PATIENT AMBULATORY... PHONE 319-4026 OBTAIN RESULTS PREGNANCY
TEST... WILL NEED NEST ASSIGNMENT AND LINE HANDLERS... (pause)... WILL
EXPECT
ANSWERS NEXT TRANSMISSION"

Magic Man could get everything from clothing measurements to racing
results and
the wardroom never knew.

Vic could fall asleep in the middle of a bar brawl. We didn't know that it
was
probably an early indication of his later medical problem.

Once, the diving officer was told that Vic was asleep on watch in the
radio
shack. Major no-no. When the diving officer went to the shack, there was
Cassiola wearing headphones with his eyes closed.

"Casciola... You asleep?"

"No sir."

Never opened his eyes.

"Well, what in the hell are you doing with your eyes closed?"

"Checking my eyelids for holes."

The worst duty on Requin was having the below deck watch and having to
wake Vic
up. The sonuvabitch could sleep through the last five minutes of a hocky
game, a
five hundred pound bomb drop and the second coming of Christ. The COB once
said
if Vic had been at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he would have slept
through
it. I would rather have taken raw meat from a half-starved Bengal tiger
than
have been sent to separate Vic from his rack. It ranked up there with the
most
delicate surgical procedures... You had to remove the flashcover from
Vic's back
without getting your lights punched out. We toyed with the idea of doing
it
electrically, but how could you wire up a guy who could have the tender
phone
your mom to wish her a happy birthday?

Vic Casciola... Did we remember you?

Hell no.

Everyone wore Dolphins, paratrooper wings, sent code at the speed of light
and
slept like a bank vault.



--

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~k0hb

"Dan/W4NTI" w4nti@get rid of this mindspring.com wrote


Did/does he have that 'sailors swing' ??


Are you trying to get me into a fight with Brian?

OF COURSE he sent proper code for Radiomen to copy, NOT the sanitized/sterilized
machine code suitable for robots to copy.

73, de Hans, K0HB

"KØHB" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Dan/W4NTI" w4nti@get rid of this mindspring.com wrote


Did/does he have that 'sailors swing' ??


Are you trying to get me into a fight with Brian?

OF COURSE he sent proper code for Radiomen to copy, NOT the
sanitized/sterilized
machine code suitable for robots to copy.

73, de Hans, K0HB

No, I am not.

Oh....in other words he does have a sailors swing. Thats good, perfectly
sent CW is boring. I remember when one ''used'' to be able to tell each
other by their fists. No longer.

Dan/W4NTI

Dan said:

Oh....in other words he does have a sailors swing.

Yes, but he can't go to heaven. It's in the Bible (Verily!). "Thou
shall not enter heaven if your Morris Code is not precisely timed,
suitable for a robot to copy". Book of Brian, Chaper 9, Verse 6.
73, de Hans, K0HB

didididah didaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

"KØHB" wrote in message
oups.com...
Dan said:

Oh....in other words he does have a sailors swing.

Yes, but he can't go to heaven. It's in the Bible (Verily!). "Thou
shall not enter heaven if your Morris Code is not precisely timed,
suitable for a robot to copy". Book of Brian, Chaper 9, Verse 6.
73, de Hans, K0HB

didididah didaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah


dit dah dit

Dan/W4NTI

Not exactly. If the intention is to purposely make the code so badly
sent that a Technician couldn't copy it with a machine....

Anyway, maybe some of the SK Banana Boaters can give us a sign as to
which QTH they're at.

"William" wrote

Not exactly. If the intention is to purposely make the code so badly
sent that a Technician couldn't copy it with a machine....

See! I knew it! I'm going straight to hell, right along with Mr. Farnsworth!

dit dit

BTW, who brought up "Technician"? I'm an equal opportunity sort of guy; I don't
care what the license class of the robot is.

didididah didaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

3, de Hans, K0HB

"B.P. Stupidname" wrote


------- CT(R) LightiningFastChickenF***ers...


Awright! I hadn't heard that term in 25 years! Use'ta love jerking their
chains. In 64 we were upriver, and NavSecGru Kama Seya had the grapes to send
us a gig-note when one of our boats yelled on pri-tac about some "F----ing
incoming". Of course I'm sure that was from a CT(O), but "guilt by association"
works for me.

73, Hans, K0HB (RMCM)

Not exactly. If the intention is to purposely make the code so badly
sent that a Technician couldn't copy it with a machine....

"See! I knew it! I'm going straight to hell, right along with Mr.
Farnsworth!"

Mr. Farnsworth developed a teaching method. In the Farnsworth method,
as the speed approaches 20wpm, the differences between Farnsworth and
Morse begin fading away, and are gone entirely at 20wpm. The
Farnsworth teaching method is not meant to be implemented as Morse
Code, but you and all the rest of you OF's pretty much do as you
please. After all, you own ham radio.

Here's an example: "Leff right leff" is a method of teaching marching.
It is not a legitimate way to call cadence and is abandoned once
recruits learn to march, not that the Navy does much marching or needs
to know left from right. They got starboards, bulkheads and decks.
;^)

"BTW, who brought up "Technician"? I'm an equal opportunity sort of
guy; I don't
care what the license class of the robot is."

One of the old farts, now SK, was specifically targeting the NCT's with
his illegible "banana boat swing" transmissions. He said so himself,
and that is the incident that both you and I are referring back to.
73 and Merry Christmas, bb

"William" wrote

The Farnsworth teaching method is not meant to be
implemented as Morse Code, but you and all the rest
of you OF's pretty much do as you
please.

"Everything not specifically prohibited is mandatory."

dit dit

3, de Hans, K0HB

"B.P. Stupidname" wrote


down Jason up CW...


Do you remember "Oh ****, Jason is beeping, now gone steady tone, and I can't
find a time tick!"

73, de Hans, K0HB

"Len Over 21" wrote


Does that have anything to do with chainsaws? :-)


Nope. Has to do with Romulus, Orestes, and maybe the Argonauts.

"B.P. Stupidname" wrote


the stupidest thing I ever used was a British BID610... or some such


I didn't know the Brits had those. We had a couple on loan from Canada at
CINCLANT to crosspatch some Cutler circuits up to the Canucks. Big ugly
monsters, the key method reminded me of Orestes. Tedious!

dit dit

Hans

Would you mind sending three copies to the Department of Redundancy
Department?

Thanks, bb

OldSailor wrote:

The only thing lightning fast about CT(R)'s was how fast they could spill a
mug of coffee or a Coke into a TTY or a piece of electronic equipment and
yell "matman"!
Actually the CT rating was more properly known as the crossed swab and
buffer. Of course, we told RM's we talked to god and wrote down what he
said!
I wanted to be an RM, arriving in boot camp with a First Phone/Radar,
General Class ham ticket and 3 years of Navy MARS experience. I was told my
GCT/ARI was too high, so off to ET school which I challenged and finished in
5 weeks, then DS "A" and suddenly I was ranked with the 2 percent of ET/DS
that could read and became a CT (M).
73 Doug K7ABX CTMCS (Retired)


I, too, became a "lightning fast chicken plucker" CT(R) after a few
years as a ham. We seldom spilled our coffee into gear, though we did
beat the c**p out of our mills copying code at 35+ gpm. I think each of
our operators had 3 of those old typewriters, 1 in use and 2 in the shop
for the matmen to try to cobble back together. Fortunately our R390's
were pretty indestructable.

Back to the original topic here, we got so familiar with the "fist" of
each of the operators of the stations we monitored, we could identify
most stations without hearing callsigns. This was even more useful in
telling us when and where units were being rotated.

After a couple of years of copying code like that, I went back to
civilian life and haven't made more than half a dozen cw qsos since.

Wayne, KEØBZ (former CTR2 1966-73)