wrote:

"Caveat," I was in the military, the United States Army,
voluntary enlistment beginning 13 March 1953. Went from
Basic to Signal School at Fort Monmouth, NJ. Amount of
Signal School time spent on morse code? ZERO! NO class,
NO "cramming."


Len, I was drafted in 1972. I was working in a TV shop and repairing
ham radios on the side. They told me I would either drive a truck or be
a cook. I raised hell. I was told by the draft board that if I didn't
have a background in electronics they would not only not draft me, but
they wouldn't even let me enlist because of my health. So a couple
months later I'm yelling at an E8 and a Captain that I was not going to
drive a truck, and I was not going to cook. I told them about the
conversation with my draft board. The sergeant laughed and told me "I'm
going to do you a favor and prove you don't know the first dam thing
about electronics" He scheduled a 6 AM for me to take the 26T20 MOS
test which was called" Television equipment repairman" It was the
Army's equivalent of the FCC first class ticket. They pulled every
trick in the book to make sure I failed, including ripping the last two
pages from the test so only 88 of the 110 questions were there. I had 2
hours & 15 minutes to take the test. I turned it in 17 minutes later.
The sergeant laughed and said, I see you've given up. I grinned and
said, No, I'm done. He started grading it and his eyes kept getting
larger. He got to the end ant went over it two more times then stuck
out his hand and said, "Son, I apologize. You got 82 of the 88
questions right. That's the best score I've seen on this test, even
when I had the full copy." I was awarded 26T20 as a civilian acquired
skill that was a three year school at Ft. Monmoth. I worked in CATV,
CARS, installed a nice PA system for the General's conference room at Ft
Rucker, and did a little RADAR before I was sent to Alaska to the AFRTS
radio & TV station to work as one of the engineers. I made E4 in 18
months and received a letter of commendation from the commanding general
of the three Army bases in Alaska.


After my release from active duty in 1956, I thought it
good to get a Commercial Radiotelephone License. Lots of
job opportunities with that then. Couldn't find a Q&A
book in town but I got a copy of the entire FCC regulations
from a good guy at a local broadcast station, studied that
and got my First 'Phone on the first sitting in Chicago,
90 miles away (didn't walk, rode the train, kept my shoes
on even if there was no snow). Moved to L.A. at the end of
'56, started at Art Center School of Design to become an
illustrator. Worked during the day at Hughes Aircraft,
found out that illustrators didn't make much money, liked
electronics (already spent three years in Army
communications) and switched to Electronics Engineering.
Took me 15 years to complete that due to job requirements
making me miss whole semesters. Got engineering
responsibility, title, and pay before any "certificate"
(suitable for framing) awarded (sheep did not sacrifice
their skins for graduates, regardless of what is said).


Just before I got out of the Army the FCC stopped allowing veterans
to convert the 26T20 rating to a First phone without taking the test
again. I was bored with broadcast anyway so I did commercial sound and
industrial electronics. Later I did early personal computer and monitor
repair.

Several engineers at Microdyne wanted to know why I didn't have an EE
degree because I knew more about some of our older products than they
did. They also knew they couldn't bull**** me when I limped into
engineering with a handful of papers. I was there for results. I could
walk into the engineering department and the place would go quiet as
they looked for any excuse to grab something and leave through the other
hallway. It didn't take them long to find out that I not only found a
problem, I had found a least one valid solution. My supervisor laughed
and told me, "You just won't take no for an answer, will you?" I
shrugged and said, No, and I won't take "Yes" if I don't believe them.


In between semesters, I thought it a neat thing to learn
this morse code stuff, get a fancy callsign to "sign
after my name" (youth can be misleading on what is
important). Got to roughly 8 WPM clean copy using
practice tapes (magnetic, reel-to-reel, cassettes had
not yet been invented in those 60s days). Stopped after
that plateau, wondered "whatinhell am I doing spending
all this time on morse?" I'd already spent three full
years on Army communications at a major station (220
thousand messages a month in 1955), had become a
supervisor, did finally work on microwave radio relay
operations in the service, was now an employee of Ramo-
Wooldridge Corp. in electronic warfare group, and the
Class D CBs had already started. I'd gotten the First
'Phone, worked on HF, was now working on more of the EM
spectrum than any ham of today can use, already had a
good home workshop and was coming along on professional
design. I didn't "NEED MORSE" to GET ON THE AIR. I had
already done that, perfectly legal, without fault.

I had tossed the idea of getting a "title" (the callsign)
since there was MUCH MORE electronics coming along. The
first of the ICs had already hit the market and some of
us were tinkering with the first personal computers,
rolling our own without benefit of MITs or Apple or SwTP
kits (hadn't come out yet). PLENTY of fun and games in
electronics AND radio to be interested in.

I used to "pass a test" every week...on payday. If
I didn't KNOW what was needed on the job, to do the
things my bosses had given me responsibility for, I
wouldn't "pass that exam." No paycheck. Bye.

I never failed such an exam. I never failed any exam
in college courses, either. I just kept on working
in engineering design...and having to constantly keep
on learning. The state of the electronics arts have
NOT ceased to advance...not one iota of stopping.


After all the early problems with engineering my supervisor was asked
to release me to them to be an EET on their newest DSP based telemetry
system. They knew I would iron out a lot of problems before the radio
hit the production floor. I redesigned several test fixtures and
re-wrote most of the test procedures into a form the guys on the floor
could follow. Then I went through all the BS of our becoming ISO 9001
certified. I told my bosses that they better keep the UL inspector away
from my bench during their quarterly audits because I didn't mind
calling an idiot an idiot to their face.

We had basic models that were customized to the customer's needs. I
also did a lot of preliminary testing of new components, boards, and
modules before they were released to production so I had a lot of data
books and marked drawings on my bench. ISO 9001, as they set it up did
not let the techs keep any notes or write anything on any drawing for
future reference. I was no longer allowed to maintain test software I
wrote for an automated test fixture and I didn't want a pencil pushing
outsider in my way while I was working. I had a 350 MHz four channel
scope on my bench, but if a test procedure specified a 20 Mhz scope the
idiots insisted that you couldn't use the 20 Mhz filter in a better
scope. Even worse, they sent someone new for every audit so we had to
go through the same mess each time. One would insist a process was
wrong. We would change it to suit him or her. The next one wanted it
changed back.

BTW I worked on almost every board or module for a special broadband
telemetry receiver we built for the International Space Station. These
days I work on old ham receivers and test equipment when I feel well
enough to spend a couple hours at the bench.


--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

From: Michael A. Terrell on Apr 18, 8:00 pm

wrote:


when I had the full copy." I was awarded 26T20 as a civilian acquired

skill that was a three year school at Ft. Monmoth. I worked in CATV,
CARS, installed a nice PA system for the General's conference room at
Ft
Rucker, and did a little RADAR before I was sent to Alaska to the
AFRTS
radio & TV station to work as one of the engineers. I made E4 in 18
months and received a letter of commendation from the commanding
general
of the three Army bases in Alaska.

Great! But Fort Monmouth changed considerably from
when I was there in '52 to when you were there 20
years later. :-)

A prime example was that there was NO CATV or any
TV courses available nor the curricula for same.
I'm not even sure where the AFRS (later AFRTS) guys
went to get electronics training for their broadcast
stations. AFRS was quite separate from regular Army
communications.

Also, in an odd quirk at the time, ALL rank promotions
were frozen while IN any school. Once one got out
(no "graduation ceremonies"), they started counting
time-in-grade. :-)


Just before I got out of the Army the FCC stopped allowing veterans

to convert the 26T20 rating to a First phone without taking the test
again. I was bored with broadcast anyway so I did commercial sound
and
industrial electronics. Later I did early personal computer and
monitor
repair.

Sigh. I didn't know the Army had gotten so generous
with conversions of skills to civilian licenses. :-)

I lucked out on assignments after Signal School, even
though it was overseas. Couldn't have asked for a
better assignment except maybe in Europe as part of
ACAN.


We had basic models that were customized to the customer's needs.
I
also did a lot of preliminary testing of new components, boards, and
modules before they were released to production so I had a lot of data

books and marked drawings on my bench. ISO 9001, as they set it up
did
not let the techs keep any notes or write anything on any drawing for
future reference. I was no longer allowed to maintain test software I

wrote for an automated test fixture and I didn't want a pencil pushing

outsider in my way while I was working. I had a 350 MHz four channel
scope on my bench, but if a test procedure specified a 20 Mhz scope
the
idiots insisted that you couldn't use the 20 Mhz filter in a better
scope. Even worse, they sent someone new for every audit so we had to

go through the same mess each time. One would insist a process was
wrong. We would change it to suit him or her. The next one wanted it

changed back.

Heh heh heh...sounds all too familiar. While we may not
have been in the same place, we got T-shirts in the
same style! :-)


BTW I worked on almost every board or module for a special
broadband
telemetry receiver we built for the International Space Station.
These
days I work on old ham receivers and test equipment when I feel well
enough to spend a couple hours at the bench.

Outstanding that you are still active! My old office
cubicle buddy from RCA days (only a month younger than
myself) suffers from Parkinson's disease (kept down
from deleterious effects, thank God), yet he had
enough soup left that he fixed me up with an HP 608 and
HP 606 generator when I got married (again). He's
on 20 meters every Saturday after fixing up his old
tube clunker transceiver.

I'm still bopping around with only minor problems, none
worth mentioning. But, I come from a family of long
livers (oh...about three feet or so, some would say).
:-)

wrote:

Great! But Fort Monmouth changed considerably from
when I was there in '52 to when you were there 20
years later. :-)


I was born in '52. :-)


I was never at Ft Monmoth. I was tested at Ft Knox, Ky. I caught a
lot of hell for it from other soldiers at my different duty stations
because they didn't believe anyone could test out of a three year
school. The station manager in Alaska told me "No civilian knows a damn
thing about electronics". In fact, someone on another newsgroup was
mailing me and calling me a liar because he insists that no one ever
tested out of a tech school. I am requesting my full military records
package from the archives to shut him up.


A prime example was that there was NO CATV or any
TV courses available nor the curricula for same.
I'm not even sure where the AFRS (later AFRTS) guys
went to get electronics training for their broadcast
stations. AFRS was quite separate from regular Army
communications.


The radio station at Ft Greely, Ak was built in 1948 as the first
permanent "Armed Forces Radio Network" station. It was the first site
built with commercial broadcast equipment instead of modified military
gear used at some sites during WW II. The radio transmitter was a gates
BC250 In the early '70s AFRTS claimed to be the only all tube network
in the world.

I wish I had a photo copy of the FCC license for the two stations.

The radio station: frequency 980 KHz.
Power: 250 watts, or as deemed necessary.
Expiration date: Until no longer needed.

The TV station: Frequency Channel 8.
Power: 500 watts, or as deemed necessary.
Expiration date: Until no longer needed.


Sigh. I didn't know the Army had gotten so generous
with conversions of skills to civilian licenses. :-)


Actually, it was the FCC who no longer accepted the military records
in lieu of testing.

There were a few other skills that were convertible. I know guys that
worked high pressure steam who said they just walked into the state's
licensing office with their military records, paid the fee and left with
their state license. There were a couple EEs who worked at the Ft
Greely power plant. That was where I first got my hands on the IEEE
magazine. Of course, air traffic controllers were in demand in civilian
airports. Ft Tucker trained helicopter pilots and Air traffic
controllers at Carin Air field, a few miles from the Daleville gate.
The airfield was Air Force, but the students were Army and Air Force, as
well as some foreign militaries. My main job was to maintain two 12
channel CATV systems and 350 monitors used to distribute educational TV
and weather data to student pilots.


I lucked out on assignments after Signal School, even
though it was overseas. Couldn't have asked for a
better assignment except maybe in Europe as part of
ACAN.

We had basic models that were customized to the customer's needs.
I
also did a lot of preliminary testing of new components, boards, and
modules before they were released to production so I had a lot of data

books and marked drawings on my bench. ISO 9001, as they set it up
did
not let the techs keep any notes or write anything on any drawing for
future reference. I was no longer allowed to maintain test software I

wrote for an automated test fixture and I didn't want a pencil pushing

outsider in my way while I was working. I had a 350 MHz four channel
scope on my bench, but if a test procedure specified a 20 Mhz scope
the
idiots insisted that you couldn't use the 20 Mhz filter in a better
scope. Even worse, they sent someone new for every audit so we had to

go through the same mess each time. One would insist a process was
wrong. We would change it to suit him or her. The next one wanted it

changed back.

Heh heh heh...sounds all too familiar. While we may not
have been in the same place, we got T-shirts in the
same style! :-)

BTW I worked on almost every board or module for a special
broadband
telemetry receiver we built for the International Space Station.
These
days I work on old ham receivers and test equipment when I feel well
enough to spend a couple hours at the bench.

Outstanding that you are still active! My old office
cubicle buddy from RCA days (only a month younger than
myself) suffers from Parkinson's disease (kept down
from deleterious effects, thank God), yet he had
enough soup left that he fixed me up with an HP 608 and
HP 606 generator when I got married (again). He's
on 20 meters every Saturday after fixing up his old
tube clunker transceiver.


http://home.earthlink.net/~mike.terrell/Projects.html has some of my
test equipment listed. Its on the "Current Projects" page because I
went two years that I couldn't do anything so I am in the process of
checking out all my equipment before I start using it again.



I'm still bopping around with only minor problems, none
worth mentioning. But, I come from a family of long
livers (oh...about three feet or so, some would say).
:-)




My retired dad lives next door. Other than some problems with his
hip he's in better shape than I am. I'm 100% disabled due to a laundry
list of "Little" problems. I still try to keep busy with some
projects. I am trying to set up a program to collect old and dead
computers, refurbish them and give them to disabled vets in my area.
This part of Florida is full of retired and disabled vets trying to
survive on a small pension or Social Security.

--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

On Tue, 19 Apr 2005 06:05:03 GMT, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

The radio station at Ft Greely, Ak was built in 1948 as the first
permanent "Armed Forces Radio Network" station. It was the first site
built with commercial broadcast equipment instead of modified military
gear used at some sites during WW II. The radio transmitter was a gates
BC250 In the early '70s AFRTS claimed to be the only all tube network
in the world.

A former subordinate of mine at the FCC, Don Browne, was an EE and
ROTC-trained AFRTS officer in the late 1960s and after his three
years on active duty with the Signal Corps went Reserve and came to
work for me. He spent several years at the field office and several
more at headquarters. His reserve billet was abolished in an AFRTS
reorganization (even though he was a MAJ) but when a vacancy on the
civilian engineering staff of the AFRTS came up he transferred to
that. He retired as the chief of engineering for AFRTS several
years ago and still hangs around the broadcast business.

AFRTS IS NOT Amateur Radio

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

Phil Kane wrote:

A former subordinate of mine at the FCC, Don Browne, was an EE and
ROTC-trained AFRTS officer in the late 1960s and after his three
years on active duty with the Signal Corps went Reserve and came to
work for me. He spent several years at the field office and several
more at headquarters. His reserve billet was abolished in an AFRTS
reorganization (even though he was a MAJ) but when a vacancy on the
civilian engineering staff of the AFRTS came up he transferred to
that. He retired as the chief of engineering for AFRTS several
years ago and still hangs around the broadcast business.

A lot of people got caught in RIFS. I worked with an E5 who was
riffed from Captain to E3 a few years before. he decided to stay in the
service so he took the reduction.

I spent more time in the TV end, but I had to take care of the radio
station as well.

AFRTS IS NOT Amateur Radio

I know its not but those old stations were maintained like a lot of
homebrew ham stations. Jury rigged repairs to get back on the air,
running a very marginal signal because you weren't allowed to shut the
transmitter down till scheduled maintenance, which was once every six
months. Repairs done with used parts salvaged from old radios and TVs.
You could see the handiwork and creativity used by former staff and I
always wondered how many were hams. The station manager at Ft Greely
was, but he was a real lid. He truly believed in tuning for minimum
smoke rather than learn how a transmitter worked, but he was the only
one like that I met in the service. Instead of using the station
monitor, he would call his wife to ask how the picture was as he screwed
with the transmitter.

BTW, I was offered a civil service job while at Ft Rucker and turned
it down. I would have finished my active duty there while I filled the
slot, then the slot would become a civilian job again.

--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Phil Kane wrote:

AFRTS IS NOT Amateur Radio

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

Hi! Awesome! Can I borrow that sometime?

On 19 Apr 2005 18:16:07 -0700, bb wrote:

Phil Kane wrote:

AFRTS IS NOT Amateur Radio

Hi! Awesome! Can I borrow that sometime?

It's in the public domain. Knock yourself out.....

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

Phil Kane wrote:
On 19 Apr 2005 18:16:07 -0700, bb wrote:

Phil Kane wrote:

AFRTS IS NOT Amateur Radio

Hi! Awesome! Can I borrow that sometime?

It's in the public domain. Knock yourself out.....

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

Thanks, Phil. I'll juxtapose it with Steve's similar quote to
illustrate what a sane and what an insane person thinks.

From: "Phil Kane" on Tues,Apr 19 2005 12:15 pm

On Tue, 19 Apr 2005 06:05:03 GMT, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

The radio station at Ft Greely, Ak was built in 1948 as the first
permanent "Armed Forces Radio Network" station. It was the first
site
built with commercial broadcast equipment instead of modified
military
gear used at some sites during WW II. The radio transmitter was a
gates
BC250 In the early '70s AFRTS claimed to be the only all tube
network
in the world.

A former subordinate of mine at the FCC, Don Browne, was an EE and
ROTC-trained AFRTS officer in the late 1960s and after his three
years on active duty with the Signal Corps went Reserve and came to
work for me. He spent several years at the field office and several
more at headquarters. His reserve billet was abolished in an AFRTS
reorganization (even though he was a MAJ) but when a vacancy on the
civilian engineering staff of the AFRTS came up he transferred to
that. He retired as the chief of engineering for AFRTS several
years ago and still hangs around the broadcast business.

Wow. I'm in the presence of Nobility. I am humbled.

FWIW, AFRTS headquarters used to be just about a mile from my
house on a little jog of La Tuna Canyon Road, just before it
gets changed to Penrose. In some "economy move" of about 7
(or was it 6?) years ago, it was emptied out in Sun Valley,
CA, and all staff moved east about 40 miles to a
decommissioned USAF base somewhat close to Ontario, CA. The
old AFRTS buildings haven't been leased to anyone yet after
all this time (one can still read the name in smudges on the
exterior wall where the raised lettering was).

AFRTS IS NOT Amateur Radio

It's SHOW BIZ !!!

AFRTS IS NOT COMMUNICATIONS per se. shrug

Did AFRS or AFRTS ever do morse code? :-)

wrote:
From: "Phil Kane" on Tues,Apr 19 2005 12:15 pm

On Tue, 19 Apr 2005 06:05:03 GMT, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

The radio station at Ft Greely, Ak was built in 1948 as the
first
permanent "Armed Forces Radio Network" station. It was the first
site
built with commercial broadcast equipment instead of modified
military
gear used at some sites during WW II. The radio transmitter was a
gates
BC250 In the early '70s AFRTS claimed to be the only all tube
network
in the world.

A former subordinate of mine at the FCC, Don Browne, was an EE and
ROTC-trained AFRTS officer in the late 1960s and after his three
years on active duty with the Signal Corps went Reserve and came
to
work for me. He spent several years at the field office and
several
more at headquarters. His reserve billet was abolished in an
AFRTS
reorganization (even though he was a MAJ) but when a vacancy on
the
civilian engineering staff of the AFRTS came up he transferred to
that. He retired as the chief of engineering for AFRTS several
years ago and still hangs around the broadcast business.

Wow. I'm in the presence of Nobility. I am humbled.

FWIW, AFRTS headquarters used to be just about a mile from my
house on a little jog of La Tuna Canyon Road, just before it
gets changed to Penrose. In some "economy move" of about 7
(or was it 6?) years ago, it was emptied out in Sun Valley,
CA, and all staff moved east about 40 miles to a
decommissioned USAF base somewhat close to Ontario, CA. The
old AFRTS buildings haven't been leased to anyone yet after
all this time (one can still read the name in smudges on the
exterior wall where the raised lettering was).

AFRTS IS NOT Amateur Radio

It's SHOW BIZ !!!

AFRTS IS NOT COMMUNICATIONS per se. shrug

Did AFRS or AFRTS ever do morse code? :-)



"Sorry Hans, AFRTS IS NOT Amateur Radio!"

Hi, hi!