Some Pix of the Batlleship Iowa Comm Center

As promised, here are some pictures I took of "Radio Central" on the Battleship Iowa. Some people call it the Comm Center, some call it the Communications Center, and some call it the Message Center. I'm not sure exactly what the correct terminology is, so we just call it Radio Central........

No, it's not anything like the movies (That's usually the CIC, Or Combat Information Center), and it's really pretty stark. Even up to 1990, when the Iowa was put into the mothball fleet at Suisun Bay for the last time, things were pretty simple. Most of the routine message traffic was handled by Radioteletype, but voice traffic could be routed throughout the ship by the various switchboards located in the Comm Center.

Since ALL message traffic went through this room, it was highly secure, and unless you were the Captain, you'd better have a damn good reason to be in there if you weren't on-duty!

This room had the teletype terminals, a couple of newer CRT-based Data Terminals, all the receivers and teletype demodulators ("Terminal Units"), some test equipment, the patch bays and switchboards, and the "Coke Machine", a large rack painted red that handled secure voice routing.

I'm somewhat familiar with most of the equipment, but don't have a clue (yet!) as to how the switch gear and patch bays tied everything together, although I have a general idea of how it should work.

The transmitters are located down on the third deck, and I haven't made it down there. It's a 'restricted area', mostly due to the fact that few people are down there to help you if Something Bad happened, and to go down there requires you to use the Buddy System, take a walkie talkie, carry a flashlight, and have permission from the Security Department. I'll get down there one of these days, as well as to the area where all our coaxial cables terminate as I have a "Need To Know" how we tie our Amateur Radio equipment into the ship's antenna system. And since I found the antenna cables mislabeled, I think I'll have to walk the entire cable path to see if something got reconnected improperly between when the new Amateur Radio cables were run, and when we started using them.

This is what first greets you as you come in through the starboard hatch:

Dead Ahead are the newer CRT-based Data Terminals, along with their storage units and interfaces. To your right are the "Reperferators" used for making a local copy of received RTTY traffic.

Over to the left are some teletype units:

The Igloo cooler on the desk, and the Astron power supply, are for the radio gear I was using for the event.

And here's my Elecraft and operating position:

With three stations on-the-air simultaneously, the headphones were a must!

This is part of the area aft of the main room where the receivers are located. Some of the receivers are Collins Radio, some are Racal, and some are made by other companies. They're all the same type, and are functionally identical, just made by different manufacturers:

There are two RTTY Tuning Units located in the right hand rack, under the first receiver, located at the top of the rack. These are used to tune the receiver correctly so the RTTY demodulator can decode the signal.

Here's a more head-on view of the rack:

This is a view of the room to the left of the rack. The units with the knobs are part of the switching equipment for routing signals around, and the "Coke Machine" is to the left of them:

The doorway that looks like a large "X" is the entrance to the Server Room that runs all the commercial enterprise stuff that helps keep the Iowa going. Sometime back we had a fuse blow that powered up some of the outlets in the room, and boy did we scramble to get the portable air conditioners back online! It was a very hot day, and the room temp hit 97* before we located the blown fuse, and got the cooling units back online. If the servers would have gone down, the ticketing people would have had to turn visitors away, as one of the servers runs the ticketing services.

This is the "Coke Machine". I'm not sure exactly what it does, but from looking at the buttons and placards on the side, I think it routes secure voice comms around the ship. No need to worry about sensitive equipment falling into hostile hands, as ALL the crypto gear was removed from the ship!

This is the other side of the room, to your back of the first receiver racks. These racks hold more receivers, the preselectors for each receiver, and some audio patch bays for manually patching the receiver audio to various places:

I haven't actually read what's written on the "DANGER" tags, but I think it's more of a warning not to tamper with the way things are currently patched (the ship's intercom works, and is in use) rather than any actual danger, like if the voltages involved here were very high.

This is a test equipment rack to the right of the racks you just saw. The far right side of this rack has more RTTY stuff, but I'm afraid to admit that I've forgotten exactly what those boxes do, even though I used to know! It's been soooo long since I did any RTTY operations that I've forgotten a lot of things!

More switching apparatus for RF and audio signals:

And back out into the main Comm Center. This rack holds more teleprinters, more reperferators, and some "BITE", or "Built In Test Equipment" to monitor the operation of the gear. To the left, on the desk, you can see the Kenwood TS-850 used as the #2 station during the event:

 This is where we operate our newly acquired Kenwood TS-850. The antenna used for this position is a "Trussed Monopole" located behind the #3 turrent, and just forward of the Helo Deck on the fantail.
I can't say enough good things about the TS-850. It was a groundbreaking radio when it first appeared, and still holds it's own today, especially if you modify it a bit with some crystal filters and a narrower "Roofing Filter". Just a fabulous radio:

This is the #3 station we ran. It's an ICOM IC-718, a good little entry level HF radio. This station ran on the other section of the Disc-Cage antenna located on the bow of the ship. Directly behind the radio are a couple of more teleprinters, while on the right are two donated units. The big gray lump is a Model 19 in a noise reducing enclosure, and I don't remember the model number of the smaller beige/tan one. I do remember they were in use at Western Electric when I worked there in 1971. I had a Model 19 in high-school, but ti was so loud that my parents would only let me run it until 9PM, then lights out!

 This rack has some other "newer" equipment, some of the earl CRT-based Data terminals, along with their support equipment. I know very little about this gear, but I'm sure I'll learn more about it:

And it has the iconic "Battle Short" switches on it:

An alarm panel in the room:

This is an area under construction outside the port hatch of the Comm Center. It had been for berthing at one time, but I think I was told it's going to be converted into an office for some of the staff:

And speaking of berthing, here's one of the berthing areas:

At least the crew didn't have to hot rack, like the submariners did.



This looking down the passageway to the stern from the Comm Center. One thing you have to get used to on the Iowa is how small the "doorways" are. I'm used to working on a ship, so I know enough to ALWAYS pick my feet up when going over a transom, but I can hardly imagine all of the ship's crew scrambling, two-at-a-time, going different directions, through these when "General Quarters" was sounded:

Here's a shot of the activities going on during the "Veteran's Appreciation" celebration. The band was just getting tuned-up:

Looking aft towards the stern brow:

The USMC Recruiter's Booth.

SEMPER FI!

Some exhibits from the Fort MacArthur guys were there. The middle vehicle was a half-track with Quad 50's on it. One of these saved my Dad's life in the Pacfic during WWII. He and some of his fellow SeaBees were pinned down by a Japanese sniper in a tree, and as the Quad 50 was rolling by they flagged him down, and told him what was going on.

A minute later the top of the tree, and the sniper, were gone:

The band:

The VA was there to assist any veteran's in need of help (I hope....):

I would have taken more pictures of the exhibits, but I was pretty busy doing radio operations, answering questions, and having a good time. One of these times when I go down to help with some other things I'm honored to help with, I'll take the camera again and get some more "behind the scenes" pix!

MINOR UPDATE:

One of the things I forgot to mention were the two gentlemen I got to meet.

One had been a Radio Officer on the Iowa during the Korean War, and was piped aboard, and brought to the Comm Center to see his old stomping ground. He was quite a guy, and explained some of the things the equipment was used for to us youngsters. He also explained how things had changed during the 1980's modernization of the Iowa, was quite happy to see that the two antennas we were using were still in good repair, and were working quite well.

The other gentleman I met while ordering lunch from one of the trucks in the "food court". He was with one of the other Iowa staff who I vaguely knew, and the staff member complimented us on getting the Iowa "On The Air", and talking to other museum ships. Now that we've got the antennas squared away, we're putting out quite a Big Signal, even running only 100 Watts output.

The Veteran he was with had been a Fire Control Officer on the Iowa during WWII, and kept us fascinated during lunch with his stories. I remember when I was little, and even when I was older, that when I tried to talk with my Dad about WWII, he didn't really want to talk about it. I'd get him started on something and he'd be telling about his travels through the South Pacific, and then he'd just clam up. and wouldn't talk about it. Maybe the passage of time has healed certain wounds, or maybe my Dad saw very different things that the gentleman I had the honor of having lunch with, but he told us some great stories about being at sea, and in combat, aboard the Iowa during WWII. How the ship reacted when the great Naval Rifles were fired, how the enemy shells sounded when they passed overhead, how the 40mm and 20mm AA guns put up a wall of steel and lead that enemy aircraft could barely penetrate, and general life aboard ship during wartime.

Every time I meet one of these men, I'm just awestruck by them. They were "just" ordinary men as they all like to say, doing extraordinary things during extraordinary times. Their country called them, and they responded, and did a magnificent job.

They truly are The Greatest Generation, and should be an inspiration to us all.

Veteran's Day and Other Ruminations

And my sincerest apologies for not posting my thanks on time for all you've done for us.

I would have posted something from work, but TPTB have blocked so many websites that they've basically crippled the Internet for 'normal' use.

ANY and ALL "Online Community" sites have been blocked (like blogger) as well as numerous other technical forums I visit when I need to find out information.

And these policies will be in effect when we're out at sea, severely limiting our after-hours activities.

One of the sites they've blocked is eBay, and since so much of our equipment is old, obsolete, and no longer supported by the OEM, we're forced (or were...) to find replacement units and parts on eBay.

I saved over $3500 by buying bits and pieces for the CCTV "remodel" I just finished, and over the last several years since the company came out of Chapter 11, I saved them well over $25,000 buying equipment, connectors, cable, and other items on eBay.

Yes, I know sometimes it's cheaper to buy things from other vendors than to buy them on eBay, and I always check a variety of sources before I buy something.

The eBay block was supposedly lifted last week, but we still can't access the site.

And they're not too concerned about it, despite the requests from at least ten of us, who gave them written proof of the money we've saved.

This is definitely going to have a severe impact on at-sea morale, as there's only so much to do after-hours (OT is severely restricted, so there's a LOT of "after hours" time), and free access to the Internet made the grind of being out on a launch mission more bearable.

Guess I'll have to buy a book on scrimshaw or knot tying to take with me.....

Great Time On The Iowa Today

And I'm beeeeeat!

We worked several hundred stations, including the Battleship Wisconsin, the carrier Hornet, and the submarine Pampanito.

I spent about an hour on 40 Meters with the Hornet, talking to Scouts who were working on their Radio Merit Badges, and needed some "air time" to fulfill one of the badge requirements.

Took some pix of the event, which I'll post tomorrow, and I figured out why our Disc-Cage antenna hasn't been working to our expectations after the new cables were run, and all the multicouplers were checked.

The two cables were labeled backwards!

The cable marked "4~10MHz" was swapped with the cable marked "10~30MHz", leading us to use the wrong antenna for the frequencies we wanted to operate on.

I wanted to sweep the two sections of the antenna with my RigExpert AA-520 so I could see how well it compared to whatever gear the guys that ran the new cables swept it with. I swept one section of it, and having the results look completely wrong, swept the other section and compared the two graphs.

As soon as I looked at the graphs side-by-side, it smacked me like the proverbial two-by-four up the side of the head that the results were opposite what the labels on the two cables would lead you to believe.

Oh, well.....the only people that actually operate radio gear on this antenna have been informed, and I printed some new labels, with the date on them, that I'll install on the cables the next time I'm aboard the Iowa.

G'night, all......

Busy Day Saturday On The Battleship IOWA!

I'm going to be on the Battleship Iowa all day Saturday to operate the the Amateur radio station we'll set up for the Iowa's "Veterans Appreciation" celebration.

There's going to be a food court, live music, and stuff for the kiddies to do.

If you're active, or retired military, you can get on fro FREE with your ID card or DD-214, so if you're in SoCal, cmon down!

Look for NI6BB on frequencies ending in "61" on the HF bands. We still don't have the VHF/UHF antennas connected, as when they pulled the mast for storage, they torched ( ! ) the cables.

The guys from the Midway radio club will be coming up one of these days to help us reconnect them, and then we'll have a MARS digipeater set up on 2 Meters.

And yes, I'll be taking my camera this time!

Yet Another Post About SDR Using A $20 "RTL" Dongle

There's been a lot of chatter on various blogs and forums about using the $20 "SDR-RTL" dongles for wide-band receivers. For $20, and FREE software, you can hardly go wrong, as long as you keep in mind some of the limitations on these little guys, such as dynamic range, about 50 dB compared to 80~100dB for a "real" receiver, and selectivity. Their sensitivity is more than enough for casual use, and they're really amazing for $20.

These little guys plug in to, and are powered by your PC's USB port, have an antenna connector on the other end, and were originally designed to receive DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial) television signals in countries outside the US. See the article "What Is DVB-T" for more info.

The basic structure of the dongle is a tuner, followed by a detector, usually a Quadrature Sampling Detector, which acts as an Analog-to-Digital converter. The most popular ones use an Elonics E400 tuner (favored because it has the widest tuning range, 52~2200MHz, with a gap between 1100~1250MHz), followed by a Realtek RTL2382U QSD/ADC/USB "Data Pump", which outputs 8-bit I and Q samples to your PC, where the software does it's magic, and out comes audio.

If you live in an area with LOTS of strong AM, FM, and Paging Systems, you might want to look into some filters (more correctly called "Preselectors") to put between the antenna and dongle to prevent the "front end" of the little radio from being overloaded with strong signals.

The dongle I bought from "nooelec" on eBay, and the two software packages I've been experimenting with are Gqrx for Linux, and SDR# for Windows.

From the little bit of experimenting I've been doing, the "best" settings for running these with SDR# seems to be with the RF Gain control set to minimum (-1dB), and the  "RTL AGC" box checked. These settings are reached by using the "Configure" button just to the left od the frequency display.

Here's a screenshot using one of the $20 USB dongles you can buy on ebay, connected to the Discone antenna I use for my scanner, and running under Gqrx on my Linux PC.

The little "radio" is tuned to a local FM radio station, KLOS, on 95.5 MHz.


I've run this same dongle with both packages, and here's a screenshot of the dongle running under SDR# on my Windows 7 machine.

Both programs are displaying the same 2MHz swath of spectrum. The Windows program has more adjustments in terms of what types of filters, sampling rates, and noise reduction is used.

I've also used it with HDSDR, but that program seems to be more suited to "Communications Quality" audio, and although it has a TON of adjustable "stuff" to play with, I couldn't figure out how to get the bandwidth high enough for Broadcast FM.

For the more "hardcore" Linux users there's Linrad, and if you're really a masochist, you can get GNURadio, which I've never been able to figure out, as it's more configurable than EMACS!

I also have a FUNCube Pro dongle, which has since been replaced by the FUNCube Pro+ version. These are much higher quality, with a much wider tuning range, and at a much higher price, currently about $201, depending on the exchange rate with Great Britain.

SO, if you're interested in using one of these for a receiver, you can't hardly go wrong for $20, and some FREE software. They won't replace a good communications receiver, or a scanner, but you can have a lot of fun experimenting with them.

Huge Meteor Seen In The Southwest U.S. **UPDATED**

Reports just coming in on my scanner from Police and news crews.

This is probably from the Leonids Shower which occurs around this time of year.

CORRECTION: The people at the Griffith Park Observatory report that it was from the Southern Taurids, which is associated with the Comet Encke.

More at the L.A. Times website.



I'd fire up my FlexRadio Systems SDR and listen on 6 Meters for some pings, but I'm either too tired, or just lazy tonight.......

A Little Humor

From one of my mailing list buddies that I used to work with at Hughes Aircraft.

My God....is that one scary looking woman, or what.....

OUCH! My Wife Just Got A $9k/yr Pay Cut!

All done through the smoke and mirrors of "Reduction in Hours".

She's the Office Manager at a local magnet High-School, and her schedule is locked in to the Principal's schedule. Her former Principal was a "12 month" employee, so my wife was locked in to that schedule.

WELL.....she retired to take of her mother, who has numerous medical issues, and the school district has declared that all "new" principals will be "10 month" employees, to better match up with when the students are on campus.

POOF! There goes two months of salary for my wife, which is about $9400. They also "front" her the sick leave and vacation allotment for the year, and she might have to give a couple of days "back" to the school district. She rarely uses her sick leave, so I think she'll be OK, but she's going to go through her payroll statements to see what her balance is.

Since her retirement is based on the highest salary she receives in the last 3 years of employment, she's thinking of retiring in two years at age 59. This would base her retirement on the last year she was a "12 month" employee. If she doesn't, she'd have to work to age 64 to "catch up", and at that time she'd get about $21/month more than if she retires at age 59, making it almost a no-brainer to retire early.

This kind of came out-of-the-blue on her, as she'd had some (verbal) assurance that she and one other staff person would continue to be "12 month" employees, as there's lot of things that go on at schools during the time when the students aren't there, like managing and overseeing various contracts and other activities that are in place to get things done.

We'll just have to take a day at a time for now....

meh....Got Nuthin' Today. Going To "Operation Comedy" Tonight

Just seem to be really full of "meh" the last few days.

Finished the CCTV rebuild, and amazingly, *everything* works! Finished it about 1700 on Friday. The managers should be really surprised at how much better the picture looks.

Went to my radio club's "First Saturday of the Month" breakfast, and then mentored an exam session for Commercial and Amateur radio licensing.

Passed one new GROL (used to be 1st Class Radiotelephone), passed one guy's Radar Endorsement, passed one lady's GMDSS Operator/Maintainer (she works on a cruise ship, and this gets her a promotion), and one young guy about 12 years old passed his Technician Class Ham test with a score of 100%.

Then I came home and took a 2 hour "nap"!

Tonight we're going to meet some friends at the Think Cafe in San Pedro for dinner, and then head out to see "Operation Comedy" at the Warner Grand Theater.

Should be a pleasnat evening with good friends, and good comedy, for a good cause.

Maybe it'll help take my sweet wife's mind off the NINE THOUSAND DOLLAR PER YEAR pay cut she was notified of Friday afternoon.

Post coming on that, just not sure how to write it.....

Tuesday Was NOT A Good Day.......

Just about finished with completely rebuilding the CCTV system where I work.

It was a royal mess!

Honeywell was the prime contractor, and did a beautiful job on the fire and intrusion alarms, but I think they farmed out the CCTV system to "Larry The Cable Guy"!

First, they were using RG-59 cable everywhere, which might be OK in your home (I won't touch the stuff!), but really shouldn't be used in a "Production Environment". It has a copper-plated center conductor, and if moisture is around (and it is in spades where this gear is located) the steel will start to rust, popping off the copper-plating. It's also not shielded very well, and this stuff looked like it was maybe 80~85% braid coverage, which means our signal can leak out, and other signals can leak in, degrading overall system performance.

Second, they used "twist-on" F-Type connectors and BNC connectors which start to degrade the minute you turn your back on them.

Third, even the crimped on connectors they used were of very poor quality, and some of them were rusted! ALL of them had been poorly crimped, in some case nearly crushing the coax. And the coax wasn't even properly stripped to install the crappy connectors. The outer jacket was split way back, the shield braid was hanging out, and the center conductor, which Type-F connectors use instead of a separate center pin in the connector, was way too long on some connectors, and barely long enough on others.

ALL the cable in this rack has now been replaced with Belden 7916A RG-6QS, which has a solid copper center conductor, two braid shields, and two foil shields. Connectors have all been replaced with Thomas & Betts (division sold to Belden) "Snap-N-Seal" outdoor-rated connectors, with O-Rings to keep them sealed.

BUT....the real downer to yesterday is that I sliced my left index finger with my knife while I was preparing a cable for the new connectors I was installing. No stitches were required, and I washed it out right away, but still, I try and be careful around sharp things.

Then 10 minutes later I jabbed my left thumb with my side cutters.....

OUCH! Yell, shout, and bled all over the place. Again, I went to the rest room, washed it out, dumped some H2O2 on it, and bandaged it up.

Now I've bandages on my left index finger and thumb. No sign of infection, but I never realized how much I used those two fingers.

And I'm still not finished with the equipment rack......

"Dark Harbor" at The Queen Mary

It's basically a bunch of "Spook Houses" with a food court, trinket sales, and a bandstand where some head banger band was playing all night.

I took my wife there several years ago when we were dating (What? Old people date?), and I got a special offer email, so I bought the tickets, and we went again.

We got there shortly before the gates opened so we could get home early (there's that "old people" thing again....), and paid the extra $5 for "preferred" parking ($25 total) so we could park MUCH closer, what with my walking ability being impaired and all.

WELL....my wife's friend who came along had "forgotten" to print her ticket after she bought it and received the email, so we spent about 20 minutes at Customer Service where they were able to look it up, and give her a replacement ticket.

We then proceeded to the entrance, where EVERYBODY who came into the event had their picture taken.

EVERYBODY.

Full face.

AND a right-facing profile.

While this was ostensibly to provide you with a souvenir (which you had to BUY for another $20), I was pretty steamed about it, as they would NOT let you pass without it.

Or so the guy taking the pictures told me.

Hmmmm....so now I'm probably in another database somewhere, in the name of stopping "terrorism" or something.

ANYWAY.......

The Spook Houses were pretty good, although you get pretty tired of somebody popping out of a dark corner trying to scare you, people banging on the walls, and the ever present thick clouds of good old Rosco Fog Juice, but the ladies enjoyed it.

One thing I'd never seen before was pretty neat. At the entrance to two of the "mazes", there was a large canvas "bag" on each side, filled with low-pressure air, and you had to force your way through very small gap between the two bags to get into the maze.

There were seven mazes (three of them took you on the ship to some spaces not normally open to the public) throughout the site to navigate, but at number five, I had to take a break, as my right hip was acting up, and I just couldn't comfortable navigate several more flights of stairs at the time, so I sat that one out while the gals walked through the "Hellfire" maze.

The next to last one was called "Submerged", and took you through the swimming pool/spa area on The Queen. I'd never seen that part of the ship before, and it was amazing. The original swimming pool is there, in very bad repair, but all the ceramic tile walls and floor of the area around the pool, as well as all the Art Deco lights, are still there, along with some signs on the wall explaining how the pool area operated, and what the cost was back in the 1930's.

As an aside, a British Pound was worth $5US back then, and I think it's something like $1.80 now. I don't know whether that says more about the Pound, the Dollar, or both!

SO...after stumbling around the entire site for about 3~3-1/2 hours, we'd seen everything, and the crowds were really starting to build up (along with an astounding assortment of female eye-candy out on the prowl for the night), so we left.

The extra $5 for the preferred parking was well worth the money, as we had parked within 100 feet of the park entrance/exit, and very close to the road leading out to the freeway, and we were out of there, and on the freeway, within 10 minutes, watching a huge line of cars from the other parking areas wind their way through the parking lot to even get close to the exit.

And I'm still pissed about being forced to have my picture taken......