Old School

[OSC Delain Tate]

I was sitting here on watch wondering if anyone other than myself is still upset with the way the RM/TC/OS world has evolved over the last 10 years or so? Does anyone other than myself miss the sparks? I still wear them on my hat.

:D

[ETC Pat Kaschube]

I still miss the arrow through the headphones!

[OSC Thomas Jackson]

I decided to be a Radioman because the little dude in the recruiting brochure looked like a D.J., but yes, I do miss the sparks. As a matter of fact, my coffee mug has the Chiefs Anchor with sparks in front of it. My mug says "Fossilized Radioman". I was never into the "RD" emblem, looks like some kind of 60's sex symbol that pimps used to wear around their necks. No offense intended to the RD's, some of my friends are RD's, honest :o

[SKC Ronald Brumble]

Tater ToTT

You should have gone to the IT when you had the chance.


tisk tisk tisk

[OSC Thomas Jackson]

Wanted to go IT. I was an RSM at MSO Puget Sound (WS-II) and was transferred to the CGC Alert. My plan was to go back to Seattle and work with the IT division, but the detailer sent me to CAMSPAC instead. When the time came to either go OS or IT, I was told that I couldn't go IT because I had no WS-III experience.

[OSC Delain Tate]

Tater ToTT

You should have gone to the IT when you had the chance.


tisk tisk tisk

I know...I know :)

I'd still be a First Class had I done that...They're not making too many ITC's.

I too miss the Sparks. My thought has always been, if they were to do away with the Sparks, then they should have done away w/ the RD Emblem too. Someone should have designed a brand new OS Rating emblem.

A funny thing happened on my way back to the comms world. I forgot everything I ever knew about computers. Mu ha ha ha :D

[OSC Thomas Jackson]

Things I miss....

Miles of Yellow paper tape all over the Radio Shack and the clacking sounds of the model 28.

The musical tones and the click of the hand key as someone tries to beat it through the counsel "--..--"

Ah, lets not forget the Cans we wore on our head and the strain they put on our ears, head and neck. Sitting in the 500 booth with a cigarette in my mouth, a cup of coffee in one hand and a pencil in the other.

How about the RIXT terminal with the 7 inch floppy disk, and the "Wider" version of the yellow paper tape that was used to keep the distance between the Class and Unclas sides of the commcen.

Trying to receive the weather maps underway, only to find they are not printing right because the paper wasn't kept damp enough.

Spending a good hour trying to find a RATT freq and then having to find another and another, just so the CGC Eagle can send you their 5 page message explaining how nice the beaches on some tropical island are, and what they ate for their barbeque....

Ahh memories....

[ETC Pat Kaschube]

Standing Sonar watch listening to Whales fart. Those were the days.

[SKC Eric S. Highland]

My wife was a Radioman back in the early nineties on the Polar Star. She is proud to introduce herself at Coast Guard functions by saying. "I was in the Coast Guard before Eric and I got married." The natural reaction of the majority is to say "Really what rate?" To which she responds:

"RM3"

Now three things happen:

The old school people get a smile on their face.
The new school look at her like she is from a different planet and "doesn't know what she is talking about"
The youngest of the young look at me and think but don't say "Dang you're old chief"

v/r :cool:

[SKC Raymond Kurtz]

The day my civilian boss referred to me as “A crusty Chief” was the day that I knew I had officially joined the old fart club.


Memories…….

Using typewriters with no letters in “A” school.

Messing up a future Commandant of the Coast Guard’s pay record (yes Storekeepers used to work pay.) Admiral Gracey was cool about it though.

Going into the office at 0300 to run the payroll for that pay period.

Getting paid on the 15th and the 30th (another one of Congress’ brilliant ideas was shifting the end of month pay day to the 1st.)

Running the end of year pay roll balance on approximately 300 pay records, only to find out that I am off by 5 cents. What a pain in the butt.

Using key punch cards and sending them to Hunter AAF in the mail to order MILSTRIP.

[SKC Ronald Brumble]

Ray
I think you have always been an old fart. Even when you were not.

[OSC Jeff Nicholson]

I miss my rangefinder...:)

[LT Arthur Nelson (MKC) (Ret)]

The dates aren't exact, but I remember on the Durable, around 1984ish, the ship receiving the new "computer" along with the good-old "Diablo" printer with the "Daisey Wheel" cartridge and the YN1 setting it up on the messdeck and displaying it to all-hands and talking about all the great things it could do such as how easy now he can write letters & memos & correct any mistakes and the SK's could use it for accounting purposes!! Needless to say, many of us left in awe.
1986ish while stationed at South Padre Island, TX, was a huge technological year. We received a fax machine and "portable" battery operated phone.
Think of it, 1986 [to me] doesn't seem all that long ago, although some of you reading this we're just born, or was still a "twinkle in your fathers eye", but that was the first fax any of us had seen and it took us a while and lots of reading the manual to figue it out. The "portable" phone was to use on the boats during LE cases and "secured" comms. Damn thing was the size of a large shoe box and heavy of a concrete cinder block. A fully charged battery lasted about an hour and if you were out of site of the station, comms were sketchy at best.

[SKC Raymond Kurtz]

Ouch, that hurt. :D

I remember being in awe the first time I had to use a fax machine, I just couldn't believe that you could send something to someone without using the mail.

Remember Rats (the video game) on the old WSII? I loved that game, got pretty good at it to. I keep wishing someone would put it on XBox or Playstation.

[ETC Pat Kaschube]

How about actually picking up a paycheck, standing in line in the main p-way and signing for it.

[ETCM Joseph Harold]

Remember Rats (the video game) on the old WSII? I loved that game, got pretty good at it to. I keep wishing someone would put it on XBox or Playstation.

Wow, now that really turned on the way-back machine. That game was cool.

:D

Edited cause I didt'n prooof reed befour postnig

[OSC Chip Hoynes]

NC DE SH

SH DE NC ZUJ (those b^ttholes...)

Screwing around on the 40 while live, getting yelled at by some old RM trying to convince us even the President could see what we were transmitting (I think I believed it).

Learning how to read the tape and forgeting something, cutting that pargraph and splicing it in.

RYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRY RYRYRYRYRY

And don't forget COMSTA whoever calling in the middle of the night, while we were in 20 foot seas, for Priority msg tfc, throwing up in trashcans , watching the bulkheads flex from the heavy seas, water leaking in on the deck, having a buddy stand by with the dead mans stick while trying to find a ded-gum clear freq standing in said water, only to get yet another milstrip. (NMN QRT DMT!)

No, I wasn't an RM, I was a QM, but I was on boats with no RM's and had to learn it.

73,
DE KB3LVK

[LT Arthur Nelson (MKC) (Ret)]

Chip, I must admit, to me your posts are much in semaphore.
I wish I had the talent to decypher your QM/RM message traffic. Hell, maybe keep it up; keep us non-bridge types trying to figure out your posts!

[OSC Chip Hoynes]

I can’t stand it, I gotta post again, the memories…

Watching OS Masterchief Rich Hughes and CWO4 Cecil Tellesh when they were RD3/2’s lugging around COMCARIBRON’s “secure cell phone” which was as big a large suitcase. I was mesmerized, and became those two guys “groupie” ;-) (back then they had hair and were much skinnier).

Sitting 50NM off Kodiak, and relaying all our tfc thru COMSTA Miami…

Iron Mike weather from NMN

NAVTEXT

Routing stamps (I used to anger my XO – the current Golden Ancient Mariner CAPT R.A. McCullough, by stamping blank paper with said routing stamp, checking his name, and putting it on the msg board - “who keeps routing me these damn blank papers!...”.

Stealing RM’s for the Signal watch for Flashing Light during REFTRA.

Programming our Omega receiver prior to getting underway. SATNAV beeps every hour.

Always getting busted for tuning in AM music on the SIMRAD.

MARS

“symbol for slantbar, symbol for slantbar” – reading msg tfc over the air to PB’s etc. with no gear.

When SSIC’s really meant something. The CG filing system.

Msg cross.

X.25

“continue on error” and SYSOP school.

Subroutines

CTOS

I gotta stop before I get ZAA’d (again)…

73,
DE KB3LVK

[ETC Pat Kaschube]

Chip you look damn good for a man of your years. What was it really like before there was loran.

[MSTC Michael Schmidtke]

Ray, I remember Rats as well. Logging into the computer in the 1st LT office on the Munro, playing after the work days....those were the days!

[MSTCS Jerald P. Motyka]

I was a new-comer to the CG technological advances. I was SYSMGR for my first unit as a boot third - and had the GOOD WS-II - all screaming 16 MHz of processor speed!! The "bad" ones only had 8MHz!!

In Ofis Document Designer, I could type faster than the screen could display it - and I only type at about 30 words per minute (barely passed my 25wpm typing test in "A" school!).

I recall being on my first cutter, receiving message traffic while underway... and having a glitch. The CO would just tell us, "Key the mike several times so they have to resend to all units!!" After about an hour of people keying mikes, all underway cutters on the Great Lakes would have their message traffic... all three messages worth... :rolleyes:

[LT Arthur Nelson (MKC) (Ret)]

I'm sure this has been covered by the previous RM's... but as a inport watchstander on the PT. Whitehorn, after pulling in, the XPO would had us a message pad with scribble on it telling me to type it & release the message.
We had the "ticker tape?" machine with the paper ribbon going thru the typewriter punching holes in the paper ribbon as I typed, misspelled every other word. After typing it, I would put the paper ribbon into another machine to transmit the message. Normally the paper would jam or break.
I would then pick up the phone and call GANSEC OPCEN and tell the watchstander to be ready for incoming message as I read it to him over the phone to send out.

[OSC Thomas Jackson]

RATS was real fun when you took the maze away. If you shot too many bullets, they'd get you in the back and you killed yourself.

I remember sitting on the CW Computer at RM A School. It had 6 different screen frames. I spent 20 minutes drawing a rocket with smoke coming out of it. I then hit the scroll key and the rocket zoomed off of the screen. Little did I know, but my instructor was looking over my shoulder the whole time.....